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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 



BY 



CALVIN WEISS LAUFER, A.M. 




BOSTON 

SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY 

1911 



HV 






Copyright, 1911 

Sherman, French &° Company 



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©CI.A286236 



TO 

ELLA F. LAUFER 

DEVOTED WIFE, LOVING COMPANION, 
AND TRUSTED FRIEND 



PREFACE 

"Key-Notes of Optimism," as its title indi- 
cates, is distinctly a book of inspiration, sun- 
light and good cheer. It covers a wide range of 
subjects pertaining to the fundamentals of re- 
ligion, and in a thoughtful and animated style, 
without being dogmatic, sounds the clarion note 
of optimism. To the author, religion, with its 
abounding privileges of spiritual communion 
and human fellowship, is the sublimest fact of 
existence, the enduring foundation of life and 
culture. 

The writer believes that what most people 
need, as they seek to realize themselves in their 
combat with the world, so full of romantic and 
tragic interests, is a push in the right direction. 
If that is given, all else follows in due course. 
Humanity is as hungry for kindness as for 
bread, and thirsts for spiritual wines as truly 
as for wayside springs. This book is, there- 
fore, designed to be a treasury of comfort and 
inspiration, and is written in the hope that it 
may prove itself a God-send to all who, in this 
age of materialism, desire a clearer vision of 
and a firmer hold on God. 

The essays and sermonettes are short, brisk 
and pungent ; and have an Emersonian flavor 
that is ozone to the intellect. They are just 
long enough to be welcomed by all persons who 



PREFACE 

keep the Morning Watch, and sufficiently pro- 
found and devotional to gratify the most con- 
templative mood in the hour of leisure and trial. 
Everyone aims to be a dash of sunshine, a gust 
of confidence, a chalice of overflowing life. 
They speak the language of the heart, and seek 
its health and happiness. Therefore the vol- 
ume is not argumentative or contentious, but, 
assuming the great conclusions of modern sci- 
ence, philosophy, and religion, graciously in- 
vites the reader to see, feel and enjoy the mar- 
velous and beneficent purposes of God in the 
ramified life of to-day. 

Crowding down upon the author, as he wrote, 
were the many and various needs of a great 
and influential people. Their burdens and 
problems, as well as their faith and fellowship — 
rich in devotion to Christ and loyalty to His 
service — were constantly before him and enabled 
him to secure an experience of the all-sufficing- 
ness of God's love in Christ, otherwise impossible. 

Gratefully acknowledging his indebtedness to 
them and to many other gentle spirits that have 
crossed his path, he bids this volume go on its 
mission of love and comfort. If it strengthen 
at least one heart in God, he is content. 

C. W. L. 

Pastor's Study 
First Presbyterian Church, 
West Hoboken, N. J. 



CONTENTS 
I. 

Chapter Page 

I. If not in the Choir, Sing 

Where you are 1 

II. In the Thought of God is 

Peace 5 

III. God is the Secret of Optimism 10 

IV. Our Life's Center is God 16 

V. Rest is the Half-Way House 

of Progress 22 

VI. Inspiration is Basic in Re- 
ligion 27 

VII. God Bears Our Troubles on 

his Heart 31 

VIII. God's Immanent Presence Di- 
rects 35 

IX. Music is a Key to Life 39 

X. A Neglected Spark Burns the 

House 44 

XI. Religion is Essential to Work 50 
Xn. God has Need of us 55 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

XIII. Christ is the Light that 

Never Fails 59 

XIV. Because He has the Light He 

Sings 64 

XV. Buoyancy — That's it 69 

XVI. The Godward Thought Re- 
juvenates 74 

XVII. In Seeing God we Live 80 

XVin. The Mount of Inspiration 

Overlooks the Valley. ... 85 
XIX. The Cross is the Key to God's 

Heart 89 

XX. God and Man Meet in the Com- 
munion, THE DAY OF THE 

Lord's Supper 94 

XXI. Life Triumphs in Death; the 

day of Bereavement 101 

XXn. Kindness Cures Heart Trou- 
ble 106 

XXIII. This may be a Transfiguration 

Day Ill 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

XXIV. Jesus Christ is the Glory of 

Easter Day 116 

XXV. The Roots of Being are Nour- 
ished by Eternal Springs. . 1&& 
XXVI. Would you Know God Better, 

use Your Eyes 126 

XXVII. The Secret Life Rewards us 

Openly 132 

XXVIIL Even yet a Present Help is 

He 138 

XXIX. The Father's Friendship 

Never Faileth 144 

XXX. The Years Change, but God 

Abides; New Year's Day. . . 148 



IF NOT IN THE CHOIR, SING WHERE 
YOU ARE 

There is a deal of energy wasted through 
complaining. People quarrel with their circum- 
stances and surroundings, regret the lack of op- 
portunity, protest at the indifference of their 
fellows, when joyful effort would bring them 
to success and renown. Every man prepares 
his own place in the world, and his present po- 
sition is the fulcrum on which he can swing 
himself into a better. If he is not yet in the 
choir, let him sing where he is. To-morrow or 
the next day he will be the accredited soloist. 
Nothing succeeds like a joyful soul. Jolly Old 
King Cole finds his way down the world, and the 
verdict of experience is "Rejoice and do your 
work, so shall you come to your latter end in 
peace." 

To inspire this mood, as we begin the day, 
there is the Prodigality of God. He has given 
us freely all things to enjoy, and they are ours 
because they are His. That seems like fiction 
and not fact; for there are so many trespass 
notices stuck up here and there. There are 
many pleasant prospects and shady groves ex- 
cluded by "Keep-off-the-grass" and "Beware- 
of-the-dog" signs. There are promenades 

1 



2 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

where love, life and friends could meet ; but they 
are on the wrong side of the "Iron Gate." 

True ! Very true ! But no one has a mort- 
gage on the Sun, or the Milky Way, or the 
Pleiades ! Not all flowers belong to the florist, 
nor are all birds caged in the Central Park Zoo. 
The ocean has not yet been bound in a tub, nor 
has the illimitable sky been enclosed in a hip- 
podrome! There is affluence everywhere, and 
a little work, keyed to the note of j oy, will bring 
all to their destiny. Someone has very beauti- 
fully intimated that God's coal cellar has been 
filled with a prodigality sufficient to warm mil- 
lions of children for millions of years. Of this 
I am sure, and it is the source of endless com- 
fort, God's Treasure Trove has diamonds, 
rubies, sapphires, opals, silver and gold that 
even the prodigious imagination of a Stevenson 
cannot begin to describe. The culinary depart- 
ment of the earth has its refrigerators well 
stored with choice fowl, fish, fruit and drink, 
and no one need go hungry. 

These physical facts are more than equaled 
by the spiritual blessings God provides. What 
a world of goodness, love, sympathy, friendship, 
religion, philosophy and art, cradle and sup- 
port, inspire and fortify every soul born into 
the world! They are the generous forces that 
run through the world, move its machinery and 
morals, inspire its ideals and achievements, and 
bring our common humanity to its goal. There- 



SING WHERE YOU ARE 3 

fore, let our work proceed to the rhythm of 
musical hearts. If not vet in the choir, let us 
sing where we are ! 

So also the Impartiality of God inspires op- 
timism. God cannot be bought or deceived. 
Xo one has any influence to divert Him from 
justice and truth. His Grand Jury does not 
acquit criminals and convict innocents ! His 
prosecuting attorney has no need of a special 
commission to investigate the methods of His 
office. He is the God of Truth and Honor — 
the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, and 
Righteousness and Judgment are the habitation 
of His throne. 

People do not always get their due. Vice 
often rides on the neck of virtue. The laws of 
equity are shamefully abused. You know it ! 
I know it ! But we have traveled together long 
enough to understand that the eye of the Lord 
is upon them that fear Him, upon them that 
hope in His mercy, to deliver their souls from 
death, and to keep them alive from famine. 
Everyone who desires it will have a square deal. 
The hand that holds man's destiny is true, and 
the end will be right. Therefore, if you are 
not in the choir, sing where you are. Sing with 
heart, hammer and chisel : with broom, pen and 
harp ! Fill the nook in which you live and work 
with rollicking sounds ! Sing where you are — 
but sing ! 

Philosophers tell us that somewhere above the 



4 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

earth is a point where all confused noises of the 
world blend into one note. Let us bring that 
point nearer earth by lifting this old world 
higher up on the wings of song and the voice of 
melody. So begin the day with a song. Sing 
where you are! Every true note pierces the 
sky and, if no other, God's ear will hear it and 
understand. In His own good time He will 
promote you and me, and all of us, to our right- 
ful place, saying, "Friend, go up higher!" 

PRAYER 

Attune our lives to Thine, O God, and help 
us to fill the world with praise. Grant us to 
know the keynote of the New Jerusalem above, 
that in our feeble way we may anticipate its 
blessedness here by filling the Jerusalem in which 
we live, with love and good cheer. Endow our 
hearts with abounding optimism, and clothe us 
with such gifts and graces that in every circum- 
stance we may reflect the greater glory that is 
in Thee. Help us to go into the dark and bar- 
ren places of this day, or into the bright and 
fruitful ones, with the healing and transform- 
ing touch of The Christ. Breathe upon us the 
spirit of gladness, and grant that the sovereign 
hours of the day may be pervaded with good. 
Amen. 



II 

IN THE THOUGHT OF GOD IS PEACE 

Underneath the worry and restlessness of the 
human heart are usually three things. Fret- 
ful that we all have been, thinking no cup of bit- 
terness so full as ours, misfortune so great, sor- 
row so deep, despair so galling, lot so hard, we 
cannot fail to recognize them. They are the 
feeling of insecurity, incompetency, and isola- 
tion. 

The sense of insecurity all of us know. We 
have looked out over the world and felt the mys- 
terious touch of infinite space. We have felt 
the shock of tempests, the sting of the lightning, 
the anger of the sea, the hostility of the earth- 
quake. We have gone through days when we 
were astounded by the boundlessness, mystery 
and silence of the universe. Mighty waterways, 
carrying sorrow and destruction in their bosom, 
have dislodged the foundations of man's habitat 
under our very eyes, and left us nothing to 
ponder save our frailty and misfortune. Great 
movements, seeking the advancement of the 
race, have come to naught. Even our loves 
have failed and filled us with inexpressible pain. 
Cherished plans have been forestalled, filling in 
consequence the heart with every presentiment 
of evil, so that out of the depths of our being 
5 



6 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

we have cried with sinking Peter, "Lord, save 
us ; we perish !" 

But God is at the heart of things, and the 
pulsations of His mighty power may be felt in 
every exigency and providence. Underneath 
us are the Everlasting Arms, and in them Christ, 
the Good Shepherd, bids us rest. The universe 
is on the side of right, and not a sparrow falls 
without the will of Infinite Love. It was this 
confidence that fortified the spirit of Jesus and 
gave Him poise and peace. But what God was 
to Him, He wishes to be to us — our eternal and 
unfailing resource. 

This day, then, nothing can separate us from 
His love and infinite compassion. Our life and 
destiny are His concern, and, though the way 
may be long and devious, and the struggle hard 
and bitter, 

"His right hand guides us 
Through the world, 
Wherein we stumble." 

Then there is the feeling of incompetency, 
which begets the fear that life's burdens are 
greater than we can bear; its problems harder 
than we can solve; and its work beyond our 
strength. The noblest of the race have left it 
and trembled. When God called Moses to the 
leadership of Israel, he protested, "Who am I, 
that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should 
bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?" 



THE THOUGHT OF GOD IS PEACE 7 

When Israel needed a comforter in captivity, a 
leader whose fervid devotion would fire their 
hearts, whose faith would quicken theirs, and 
whose indomitable courage would challenge them 
to action, Isaiah, the chosen one of God, cried 
in distress of spirit, "Woe is me 1 I am un- 
done." In the presence of great hardships and 
incalculable obstacles, Washington knelt in the 
snows of Valley Forge, and prayed that his 
strength might not fail. 

So have men always inclined on God as the 
only sufficient resource in time of great respon- 
sibility, and it is important for us to emphasize 
in our own lives that our irritations and be- 
wilderments will not be dissipated until we feel 
the push of Omnipotence behind us, and His 
presence brooding over us. Jesus said, "I do 
nothing of myself. The words that I speak, I 
speak not of myself; the Father doeth the 
works." There — He had peace, and could be- 
stow it upon others. And so will we have peace 
this day, and every day, the moment we discover 
that God's perfect ability to do all that His 
nature suggests is the soul's anchorage. There 
are peace, power and plenty. 

But what of the feeling of isolation? What a 
feeling it is to have! You are familiar with it, 
I am sure. How terrible, in the big city, with 
not a person to call you by name or to say a 
word of affection! You are among thousands 
of people, and in a great community of home- 



8 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

life, and yet you are homesick! So have we 
been alone with our plans and purposes, our 
books and inventions. The world stopped at 
every door but ours. For every other was 
kindly greeting, except one's own heart. But 
listen! We are not alone! He Who sent us 
into the world is with us, for He is the same 
yesterday, to-day, and forever. He is at the 
helm of your life and mine. We cannot lose 
the way. We shall arrive in port. 

"I feared the track was missed, 
So long the city I desired to reach 
Lay hid: when suddenly its spires afar 
Flashed through the circling clouds!" 

Let us open wide our eyes and hearts to this 
great fact, and enter the new day unafraid. 
God is faithful, Who will establish us and keep 
us from evil. Let us think of Him — the 
thought of Him is peace. Let the conscious- 
ness register His mysterious presence now, for 
He is here — He is here! He is here in the 
plenitude of His power, to relieve the shoulder 
that is bowed down, to comfort the heart that 
is stricken, to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, 
and to heal the sick. He is just where we are 
— the Hope of Life and Glory ! At this moment 
His voice reaches to the abysmal deeps and 
heights of our common humanity, saying, 
"Peace be with you ; it is I, be not afraid." 



THE THOUGHT OF GOD IS PEACE 9 

PRAYER 

How good of Thee, O God, to go with us all 
the way in life's pilgrimage! We are never 
alone. There are no solitudes, for Thou art in 
the shadows, in the silences and in the full-orbed 
day. In Thy presence we live, and move, and 
have our being. 

As we live and work together, grant that our 
natures may be refined and transformed. As 
we behold Thy glory, hold sweet converse with 
Thee and are warmed and soothed by Thy love, 
may we grow into Thy image, from glory to 
glory. So shall the day be Thine and ours, a 
triumph for good and a victory for peace. 
Amen. 



in 

GOD IS THE SECRET OF OPTIMISM 

"And how is it that you never lose heart?" 
was the question asked of Sir Humphry Davy 
by a devoted friend and disciple. 

"I feel," replied he, "the pressure of the In- 
finite behind me, and, in consequence, cannot 
doubt the issue of things." 

Such is the glad admission of all who live 
deeply and in harmony with the present order 
of things. God becomes very real and vital to 
their experience, and gives them such a vivid 
sense of His immediateness that they cannot 
doubt the fact that their lives are nourished and 
driven by Him. They know that the tremendous 
energy of the Infinite transfuses their being, 
and, feeling within themselves the resurgence of 
it, can fear and doubt no more. The sense of 
God's presence in the soul makes them optimists. 

God is the secret of optimism. His person- 
ality is its foundation, and His love is its con- 
trolling genius. We can trust the world because 
we cannot doubt Him. We know the universe is 
on the side of right, because of what He is. The 
world is so constructed that, in its challenge of 
the mind, in its appeal to the imagination, in 
its exactions on the heart, it ministers uncon- 
sciously to the spiritual enrichment of humanity. 
10 



GOD THE SECRET OF OPTIMISM 11 

The world is biased in favor of goodness, and 
the God of it is man's chief asset in the business 
of life. 

Once a person harnesses his life to this fact, 
like Emerson hitched his to the stars, he can 
never lose heart. He lives like a man who has 
built his house beside a never-failing spring; 
other brooks and wells may run dry, but his 
flows on forever. He has the perfect confidence 
of a mill-owner who gets his power from a gi- 
gantic water-fall. The machinery may wear 
out, but the power that drives the mill never 
suffers depletion. He is an optimist because he 
has God. God is entrenched in his being as 
his eternal resource. God is the dynamic of his 
life and, therefore, is his heart strong, and his 
face shines like the sun, and his love is like a 
tide at flood. God is center and sphere, source 
and supply, of his life; and consequently it 
never occurs to him that he can either lose or 
fail. The consciousness of God's friendship en- 
ables him to be perfect master of himself, and 
helps him to go through the world with a spirit 
of cheerfulness, that leaves in its wake a trail of 
light and love. 

God is the High Tower of Optimism. Not 
until His supremacy is conceded, admitted and 
firmly believed, can there be quiet of heart or 
that strong courage that faces obstacles and 
surmounts them, confronts problems and solves 
them, sees burdens and lifts them, and witnesses 



12 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

sorrow and shares it. One must come to see 
and feel, that behind all that is, works a 
beneficent Providence, in whose power the uni- 
verse is a versatile instrument, and so played 
upon and controlled, that the deeper mystery 
of things is felt like a deep undertone of pro- 
foundest and ineffable harmony. This was the 
secret of Jesus. It never occurred to Him that 
anything for which He stood could come to 
naught. What He sought was a part of the 
scheme of things, and He had the feeling that 
God would accomplish what was in His heart. 
Omnipotence would give the victory. 

Conceived in the light of what God is, the 
world assumes a homely and inviting aspect. It 
is the place — the school — in which the Eternal 
meets the uninitiated, and by His presence and 
inspiration, by the gentle and solicitous minis- 
tries of His Holy Spirit expels sin, unrighteous- 
ness and wrong, and leads the soul to that re- 
alization of itself that prepares it to meet its 
God and live with Him forever. It gives one 
the feeling that the world is a vast farm-land, 
designed for spiritual fruit-growing. Every 
inch of the soil is irrigated by the waters that 
rise in the Everlasting Hills, so carefully dis- 
tributed that every plant and seedling has play- 
ing around its roots the moisture of the clouds 
and the warmth of the sun. Everywhere are 
fulness and beneficence, giving tone and color, 
charm and freshness, to things around. Every- 



GOD THE SECRET OF OPTIMISM 13 

where are subtle hints of a presence that grows, 
perfects and fructifies existence. This is not 
an allegory; it is a fact. God has so inducted 
Himself and so vitally identified Himself with 
everything, that we cannot fail or fall without a 
struggle. If the world goes wrong, it does so 
against itself. If a man fails, he must first fight 
himself and the God of his being. He cannot be 
a pessimist without losing or forfeiting the Di- 
vinity that lives and works in his undying soul. 

This has strange charm for us : to know that 
He who sent us into the world, and breathed 
into us the breath of life, has not left us alone. 
As He was with Jesus, so is He with us. The 
same completeness surrounds us. His presence 
is in the course of things, and His plans con- 
cerning us cannot, will not, fail. With quiet, 
steady, persistent motion, all things tend to a 
spiritual supremacy of things ; and in that con- 
summation, man will and shall be the glory. 
That is what Jesus saw in His vision of things 
and, therefore, there was no shadow in His sky, 
because there was no pessimism in His heart. 
Great as the world's sin and misery were, He was 
not petulant or disturbed. He was not alarmed, 
because no great doubt gnawed at the vitals of 
His soul. He was calm and confident — every- 
where! He was as cool and collected in the 
crowd as in the Bethany home among his friends. 
He is just as alert, keen and sure-footed among 
the designing Pharisees as when resting at 



14 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

Jacob's Well and listening to the talk of the 
Samaritan woman. Indeed, He is the one per- 
son of the world in whose eye the sun of opti- 
mism never set. 

He was sure of God, and so may we be. 
What He saw, we may see: a marvelous upward 
evolution of things, ending only before the great 
white throne. God's great educative and re- 
demptive processes were His delight ; they ought 
to be ours. He felt their pressure in His life 
and was glad. So may we. With Him we may 
see History in the light of Infinite love and live 
in the conviction that 

"God will not leave us in the dust; 

He made us man, we know not why, 
We think we were not made to die; 
And God has made us: He is just." 

There can be no failure when God's hand is 
on the Pilot-Wheel. Sin, disappointment, 
death ; the myriad ills of body, mind and spirit ; 
the excesses of man and society; all must yield, 
and eventually all will be drawn back into a vast 
and illimitable region of fellowship and blessed- 
ness. 

"The stars shall fade away, the sun himself 
Grow dim with age, and nature sink with years — " 

but redeemed humanity, saved and clothed in 
righteousness 



GOD THE SECRET OF OPTIMISM 15 

"Shall flourish in immortal youth, 
Unhurt amidst the war of elements. 
The wreck of matter and the crush of worlds." 

PRAYER 

O God, we thank Thee that the heart that 
controls the universe, directs the hand that deals 
with man. It is strong enough to be irresistible 
and supreme, and yet as gentle and soft as the 
hand of a child. It is a shield against danger 
and peril, yet sufficiently tender to ease the sor- 
est heart. Terrible as the lightning's bolt, it is 
also a healing breath that, in its approach, is 
as subtle as the fragrance of a rose garden, and 
as gratifying and consoling in its ministry. 

We thank Thee that Thou art so deeply in- 
volved in all life's concerns, and so profoundly 
and vitally identified with all things, that Thou 
art able to help us without our knowing it, or 
to guide us without being aware of Thy pres- 
ence; and to bring us into port with a current 
so deep and imperceptible, that we are not con- 
scious of it. So dost Thou subdue the world 
and lead our common humanity to the New 
Jerusalem beyond, where we shall awake in Thy 
likeness and be satisfied. Amen. 



IV 
OUR LIFE'S CENTER IS GOD 

Life's center is God, and toward Him we tend 
with a momentum that brooks no delay. At the 
end of our sojourn here, we shall see the Beatific 
Face of God Our Father. The present order is 
the arena on which are enacted the romances 
and tragedies of existence, and by them we are 
tutored and disciplined for the greater glory 
that remains to be revealed. That we shall see 
the face of divinity, our nature anticipates. 
There is an "ought" in our lives that is as pow- 
erful as gravitation, which draws all things to a 
common center. 

What we are to be, which is anticipated by 
nature, indicates our present duty. In the ter- 
restrial life, with its endless round of human 
interest and desire, we are to prepare ourselves 
for the celestial. The characters we fashion, the 
careers we seek, are to presage the future, so 
that in the denouement of things, by what we 
have attained and achieved, we may have that 
refinement and culture which will give us a home- 
like feeling in the presence of God. To the ac- 
complishment of this end all things conspire. 
The world is so constructed, that in the loom of 
existence, by the play and interplay of divine 
forces, God's eternal purposes concerning us 
16 



OUR LIFE'S CENTER IS GOD 17 

prevail. He wishes us to be like Him, and like 
Him we may become, leaving far down the road 
the instincts and passions of the carnal, and live 
in the increasingly abounding life of the spirit. 
To this end we may feel behind us the push 
of the centuries, and beneath, the joyous flood- 
tide of eternal love, bearing us on to higher 
achievement and culture. There is a forward 
movement in all things, and at the end of it, 
and in every stage of the process, is God. God 
moves by our sides, breathes upon us, antici- 
pates our wants, puts His strength under 
our burdens, communicates Himself to us, so 
that 

"Not one life shall be destroyed, 
Or cast as rubbish to the void." 

God is our Father and we are His children. 
This day, aye, this moment, we can feel the push 
and pull of His ensphering providence. We 
cannot fail, or lose, or stumble, without com- 
bating His presence, which holds us up. We 
cannot go wrong, except with remonstrance 
within and without, for sympathy and solicitude 
— cosmic and human — do not leave us solitary. 
Love and kindness meet us everywhere, to re- 
spond to and enlarge, to gladden and enrich, the 
being that we are. God is in the process, as we 
already know by the depth, sweep and solemnity 
of His indwelling life; and, at the last, the hu- 
man soul and her eternal lover shall meet each 



18 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

other face to face, and live together in enduring 
felicity. 

Who can put the thought more beautifully 
than our much-loved and highly esteemed Henry 
Van Dyke, the Dean of American Letters? 

"O, mighty river! strong, eternal Will, 
Wherein the stream of human good and ill 
Are onward swept, conflicting, to the sea; — 
The world is safe because it floats in Thee." 

Such is the world we enter each day. Come, 
then, let us bask in its idealism ! in its light ! and 
imbibe its refreshment ! The very thought of 
it is ennobling and purifying, and helps us to 
live. It makes us great, grand, and sovereign 
men and women. Its gracious atmosphere in- 
spires Godlikeness. 

Once, when Rubenstein was a young man, he 
played in Vienna, which was then, as now, the 
home of many musical celebrities. As his fame 
had preceded him, he was awaited with unusual 
interest, and the city gave him a large and en- 
thusiastic hearing. The crowd that thronged 
the great Opera House witnessed a most brilliant 
performance, and was deeply moved by the skill, 
taste and passion of the virtuoso. No one was 
more deeply impressed than Leschetisky, the 
great teacher of the piano. Of him it is said 
that he sent his card to Rubenstein with this 
stimulating message: "My young friend, you 
play like a God." It was a rare compliment, 



OUR LIFE'S CENTER IS GOD 19 

and is exceeded only by the still greater that is 
spoken to us when we have done well — and it 
comes from the lips of God. It is, "My child, it 
cheers my heart; you are living divinely." 

Now, we may live so because the same spiritual 
forces that inspired and sustained Jesus Christ, 
are for our enrichment and redemption. The 
resources that maintained Him are at our dis- 
posal that, like Him, we may realize our spirit- 
ual sonship. The same power is belted to the 
machinery of our life. Pressing down on every 
atom, cell, and fibre of our being, is the tre- 
mendous ocean of eternal life. 

Herein lay the secret of Jesus' life. Now it 
is our secret — the open sesame to spiritual son- 
ship. Jesus knew He could not fail, because He 
was conscious of infinite resource. His con- 
sciousness of Himself involved an experience of 
God. When He thought of Himself, he felt, 
as no one before or since, the thrill and perpet- 
ual intimacy of divine relationship. His life 
was inextricably entwined with the Lord God 
of Hosts ; and nothing has he made more plain 
to the weak and hopeless, the poor and helpless, 
the weary and sinful, than this superb fact, that 
God is waiting to fill the lives of His children 
with the transcendent energies of His Personal 
Life. 

It is hard for us to conceive how stupen- 
dous this truth is, except by comparison. What 
represents the greatest power we know? Possi- 



80 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

bly Niagara. Yes and no. Niagara incarnates 
millions of horsepower, but it is not as impres- 
sive and powerful as the electricity that fills in- 
visibly the atmosphere. Electricity is powerful 
and ubiquitous, but not as great and magnifi- 
cent as the power resident in the light of the 
sun, which keeps the stars and planets, and 
every obscure blade of grass and flower in poise 
and health. And the sun's power is as nothing, 
when compared with the vast, subtile and dif- 
fusive intelligence that created and now main- 
tains and controls the universe, involving a 
myriad worlds and satellites, moons and suns, 
and so orders the whole, that the process is like 
the harmonious movement of a gorgeous sym- 
phony. All great powers, all great forces, 
center in God, who is so much our friend that 
He never fails to say, "My child, all I have and 
am, is thine. Trust me and be not afraid, and I 
will clothe thee with glory and honor. Be con- 
tent ; after many heartaches, thou wilt awake 
in my likeness. Until then, My love will sustain 
thee." 

PRAYER 

O God, Our Father, the more we think of 
Thee, are we amazed at thy great love. It is 
beyond us — we cannot attain unto it; and yet, 
all the while its pervasive and enthralling min- 
isteries enrich and console us daily. We lie 
down and sleep in peace and safety, because 



OUR LIFE'S CENTER IS GOD 21 

Thou fillest the night with Thy love, as with the 
stars. We awake to till the fields and direct 
the looms of existence, and lo, Thy love has an- 
ticipated us, and is as generously distributed as 
the light of the sun, that rises on the evil and 
the good. We cannot mistake Thy purpose ; it 
is Thy way of schooling us for better things. 
Help us to bow our heads and be thankful. 
Amen. 



REST IS THE HALF-WAY HOUSE OF 
PROGRESS 

Few things are needed more in these strenuous 
times than quiet and relaxation. Our industrial 
system and commercial life, social order and 
political problems have so thoroughly engaged 
us that we are all tired, nervous and restless. 
The time for meditation has come, and only a 
"day-off" to the House of Rest and the Garden 
of Solitude can revive us now. 

Relaxation is mandatory, if we hope to co- 
ordinate life, and acquire that individual char- 
acter that gives prestige to a people. The pace 
at which we have been moving, is not conducive 
to strength and intelligence. We have been 
going so fast that we have forgotten the consti- 
tution of things. We may have lost our way! 
There is no telling, until we have secured our 
bearings and plotted the course which we have 
pursued. We may have been consuming our- 
selves without growing; so anxious about doing 
things that we have missed the greater achieve- 
ment of being somebody. Therefore, we must 
practice the gentle art of recreation, and by so 
doing, find out how things hang together, ac- 
quaint ourselves with those interior forces that 
condition our multiform life, and trace the 






REST, THE HALF-WAY HOUSE 23 

thread of God's purpose in the warp and woof 
of existence. Though it seem the height of 
folly, a little exercise in the Garden of Solitude, 
or a visit to the House of Rest, will improve us 
wonderfully. We will be more by doing less. 

In speaking of the English people, Emerson 
said: "They are, of all people, the ones who 
stand firmest in their shoes. They are a people 
of constitutive and unswerving spirits, and never 
faint-hearted. They have vigor and brawn, 
mental stamina and moral solidity." The rea- 
son lies in this, they have learned how to rest. 
They are proficient in the art of conserving en- 
ergy. They love God's Out-of-Doors. They 
take delight in strolling through the wildwood, 
and thoroughly believe that "All work and no 
play makes Jack a dull boy." They know that 
Rest is the Half-Way House of Progress. 

So much cannot always be said of us Ameri- 
cans. The Gospel of the Strenuous Life has 
been preached at the expense of Christ's Gospel 
of Relaxation, and consequently many of us are 
seldom, if ever, quiet long enough to get the 
Benediction at the close of a Sabbath service! 
The very thought of solitude bores us. Few of 
us, therefore, are familiar with shady nooks and 
ancient groves, and only here and there is an 
odd person who knows the haunt of the trout 
and the lair of the fox. When we relax, we visit 
Coney Island, with its wild-voiced hurdy-gurd- 
ies ; or Atlantic City, with its social rivalries ; or 



24 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

frequent the mountains, there to concoct some 
new form of excitement; as though we were 
afraid to think, and ponder, and pray in the 
solitudes of the forests, or play in the fields, or 
sit under the trees and beside the water-courses, 
or rest in the sanctuary. We have not learned 
that Rest is the Half-Way House of Progress. 

Relaxation is needed for the sake of culture, 
to give expression to those finer and more tactile 
qualities that crown our nature. A man is 
greater than any one thing he does. He is big- 
ger than the shadow he casts in the world of af- 
fairs. His work gives scope for only a fraction 
of what he really is, so that he needs leisure for 
the home, the church, the library, the opera and 
the field. He is not a tool, nor an integer in an 
enterprise, nor a mere index to a department. 
He is Man — with divinity shining through his 
eyes and, consequently, needs to devote himself 
to love, religion, art, philosophy and God. 
Only in this way can we free ourselves from the 
bondage of the artificial and conventional, and 
ally ourselves with the liberating forces of the 
inherently spiritual, and so gain that refinement 
of taste, touch and thought which constitutes 
culture. 

More of our days ought to be set apart for 
rest and recreation for the sake of worship, 
which always leads to the discovery that we are 
in stronger hands than our own. Work has a 
centrifugal force that separates from life's cen- 



REST, THE HALF-WAY HOUSE 25 

ter — God. Worship is a centripetal force keep- 
ing us in touch with the great fountain-head of 
life, from which many have been drawn by fail- 
ing to visit the House of Rest. To guard 
against this was Jesus' purpose. His invitation 
is a challenge to communion with nature and 
God. He wants us to know how wonderfully 
God is involved in our destiny, and how vitally 
we are involved in the mighty purposes of 
Eternal Love. Therefore, He says, "Come ye 
apart into a desert place and rest a while." 

Let us go ! Let us go with Jesus and take in 
the sweep of things, like the flower does the mist, 
the sun, the sky. Let us go with Him to those 
abodes where 

"We walk on holy ground; above 
A sky more holy smiles; 
The chant of the beatitudes 
Swells down the leafy aisles." 

Let us lay our heads on the bosom of the 
earth, and, while nature's organ plays and in- 
cense rises from flower and field, imbibe the 
meaning of God's vast creation, and be glad. 
Let us spend a day at the House of Rest or in 
the Garden of Solitude. So shall we return to 
life and work with spontaneity and freshness, re- 
fined sensibilities and quickened impulses, cap- 
able of love and mercy, justice and truth. 

This once let us heed the Saviour, shelve our 
creeds and dogmas, lock up our ledgers and in- 



86 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

vestments, lay down our work, check our ambi- 
tions, and go apart and rest a while. 

PRAYER 

This day, O God, we would be calm and rest- 
ful in Thee; and, therefore, beseech Thee so to 
strengthen us that we may not yield to the speed 
and tension or be distracted by the noise and 
jostle of the world. Grant that we may not 
fear or fret, because much is required of us, or 
because our days are sometimes hard and bitter. 
As the Saviour rested in Thee, so would we all 
enter the circle of infinite quiet and peace. 

If need be, inspire us to withdraw from our 
wonted activities, that we may enter into the 
solace and strength of the spiritual world that 
impinges upon ours. Though the lesson be hard 
to learn, teach us, Dear Father, that sometimes 
we make the greatest progress by laying aside 
the tools on which it depends, and that we ac- 
complish more by doing less. Help us to know 
that we have not been idle if we have seen and 
found Thee in the sunset and the stars, or felt 
Thy presence in the Solitude. When we return 
to our tasks again we shall know, that REST 
was sought in wisdom, by the joy, enthusiasm 
and strength we shall experience. 

As little children pillow their weary heads on 
the bosom of Love, help us to rest on Thee and 
be quiet. So will the day be full of Thy glory, 
in the new miracle of life wrought in us through 
the perfect peace of God. Amen. 



VI 

INSPIRATION IS BASIC IN RELIGION 

Inspiration is basic in religion, and no person 
knows the charm, efficacy and all-sufficingness of 
it, except he feels within himself the pulse of the 
Infinite God. The fact that one subscribes to a 
creed, or accepts certain dogmas, or joins a 
church, is of little consequence, if this larger 
experience is wanting. The experience of God 
in the heart, the consciousness of His presence 
in commonplace things, and the knowledge of 
His supremacy in the progress of events, con- 
stitute religion. Religion is conscious life with 
God, and it has value for us, only as it keeps us 
in daily and hourly union with His all-loving 
personality. 

It is said of a certain Scotchman that for 
many years he got up at sunrise to look at the 
grandeur of the world, watch the unfolding of 
light, feel the stirring of life in the trees, and 
observe the early wonders of each recurring day. 
When asked to explain, he said, "There is no 
hour like the sunrise to give one a new and fresh 
experience of God." 

His experience of God was religion. He had 
religion, not because he rose at five o'clock in 
the morning to watch and pray — that was 
merely a religious act ; he had religion, because 

m 



£8 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

through certain religious observances, he se- 
cured a vital and personal knowledge of Infinite 
Reality. He was religious, not because every 
now and then he partook of the sacrament and 
scrupulously looked after his pew rent and the 
baptism of his children ; but he was religious 
because in some way he had become acquainted 
with God — not as an ideal, or as a profound 
truth, or as a proposition, but as a personal 
friend. His spirit touched the Infinite and 
was vitalized by Him, and his religious life was 
a very substantial thing because its unfailing 
resource was God. His inbreathing and solic- 
itous presence gave it content and foundation. 

Now, life in its highest relations gains influ- 
ence and scope only in this way. Just as the 
violin speaks its most beguiling messages to the 
soul, when the master artist touches it and 
breathes upon it, so is it with the human heart. 
It will respond to many lower appeals, and 
sometimes, to its detriment and ruin, yields to 
them; but its noblest sentiments and emotions 
respond only to the touch of God. Our best is 
God-born. 

All history proves this. The great saints of 
the church attest the fact. They knew God; 
they were filled with His power; they were con- 
trolled by His purposes ; and they persevered in 
His service. If anyone took occasion to inquire 
into the secret of their life, they solemnly re- 
plied, "We have seen and felt God." And it was 



INSPIRATION IN RELIGION 29 

just this that impressed the pagan mind. Cold 
and hard Roman diplomats, Athenian judges 
and educators, Ephesian capitalist, and Span- 
ish merry-makers, were nonplussed by the other 
worldliness of the saints. They confessed that 
Christians possessed some secret that was not 
theirs ; a j oy they could not explain ; and a 
power that was conspicuously triumphant and 
incomprehensible. 

They were inspired ; and the sublime truth for 
us this day is, what God did for them, He does 
for you and me. This very moment we can hear 
His voice behind us, saying, "This is the way, 
walk ye in it." So intimately and vitally are 
we 

"bound by gold chains about the feet of God/' 

that we may feel the pulsations of His energiz- 
ing spirit in all we think and do. The "still 
small voice" of inspiration may always be heard 
and become an absolute and unerring guide ; and 
where it is obeyed, it stimulates the mind to 
loftiest thought, inspires the heart to profound- 
est feeling, and arouses the will to sublimest ac- 
tion. 

"A thousand unseen hands 
Reach down to help you to their peace-crowned 

heights, 
And all the forces of the firmament 
Shall fortify your strength." 



30 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

PRAYER 

Blessed God, we thank Thee for the intimate 
and ennobling bonds that make it hard for us to 
escape Thee in our earthly life. So thoroughly 
art Thou entrenched in us that we cannot but 
joyfully and reverently cry, "Abba Father 1" 
At first we could not believe that Thou wert so 
near and vital, and now, that we have had sweet 
company together, we cannot doubt the fact. 
Verily, we are anchored in Thee, Great God of 
Hosts ! 

With good cheer and optimism, then, we enter 
this day. We take up our tools and appointed 
tasks, meet our trials and troubles, our joys and 
successes, walk through the rough and smooth 
places, with but one desire in our hearts : "May 
Thy will, God, be done 1" Amen. 



VII 



GOD BEARS OUR TROUBLES ON HIS 
HEART 

The genius of Christianity is never more man- 
ifest than in the hour of trial. It is then that 
it proves itself to be the soul's anchorage and 
resource. By the comfort it gives, the strength 
it inspires, the courage it arouses, it robs mis- 
fortune of much of its embarrassment, death of 
its sting, the grave of its victory, and brings 
eternal good out of chaos and confusion. It 
entwines itself around our desolation with a 
wreath of heart's-ease, and makes us to know 
and feel that 

"Behind the dim unknown 
Standeth God within the shadow, 
Keeping watch above His own." 

God bears our troubles in His heart, and 
therefore we can bear them. Their weight and 
woe need not crush us, for infinite love will hold 
us up, and not suffer us to be confounded. 
When we go through the valley of the shadow 
and are greatly troubled by the gloom, we need 
fear no evil. His rod and His staff they com- 
fort us. When we are afflicted and sorely tried, 
the angel of His presence will calm the storm of 
fear and fret, anxiety and alarm, and, in great 
31 



32 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

love and pity, bear us on to rest in the harbor 
of peace. As one whom his mother comforteth, 
will God comfort the believing soul, lift it from 
the depths to the heights, and cause it to know 
that no life can fall and fail, when it is gripped 
and secured by eternal love. 

If, then, this day you are troubled by any cir- 
cumstance in your life and work that has the 
sombre aspect of impending calamity or ruin, do 
not lose courage. You need not suffer alarm; 
the occasion brings with it — God. In His pres- 
ence you will be your best. The divinity of your 
nature will respond to His, and save the day. 
Nature will assert itself in quickened imagina- 
tion, clearer vision, stronger hope, and irre- 
pressible confidence and strength. It is true, 
you hoped for a day of fair sailing, with gentle 
breezes and cloudless skies. But may it not be 
that these have been denied, in order that you 
might know how wonderfully all of us are em- 
bosomed in the embrace of God? You will find 
it so ; and, like another who learned a new song 
in the hour of desolation, you will at last be 
able to sing: 

"O Love that will not let me go, 
I rest my weary soul in Thee; 
I give Thee back the life I owe, 
That in Thine ocean depths its flow 
May richer, fuller be. 



GOD BEARS OUR TROUBLES 33 

"O Joy that seeketh me through pain, 
I cannot close my heart to Thee; 
I trace the rainbow through the rain, 
And feel the promise is not vain 
That morn shall tearless be." 

I once overheard another say: "The tender- 
ness of God was foreign to me, until one day I 
needed Him to comfort my desolate heart. 
Then I learned to know Him with the thrill and 
thrall of sudden revelation." It is often so; 
our trials are keys to fuller knowledge and pro- 
founder religious experience. Through them 
we learn that God does not permit us to be lost 
in the jungle of fear, despair and death. Great 
furnace fires try us, but the gold of our being 
is not lost in cinder and ashes. We come forth 
— pure, bright and precious, because a heart is 
at the center of the universe, and we are at the 
center of the heart. The heart of God is the 
home of man. 

This, then, should be a day of serenity and 
quiet confidence, for whom God loves, He helps ; 
whom He bears on His heart, He sustains ; whom 
He cherishes, He defends. So long as we follow 
the path of duty, however hard and exacting, 
we cannot step out of His encircling presence. 
We will always be the center of His ensphering 
love, and all its exhalations converge in us. In 
that enclosure we may face the day securely, and 
meet its perils unafraid. Just this, perhaps, is 
to be the outcome of to-day's providence — a ful- 



34* KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

ler realization of God's unfailing companionship. 
It may be that He desires to say: "My child, 
fear not ; My hand holds thee fast, and thou art 
wrapped in abiding love. If thou wilt believe, 
nothing, however high or low, terrible or strong, 
boundless or overwhelming, shall tear thee from 
My heart. Perform the work at hand ; face the 
darkness ; confront the problem ; meet the cloud 
— I am with thee to the end." 

PRAYER 

O God, Our Father, we thank Thee for the 
restful and abiding assurance that no exigency 
or circumstance of life can be a surprise to Thee. 
Thou bearest us on Thy heart, and nothing can 
touch us without affecting Thee. That which 
is dark to us is clear to Thee ; and in Thine own 
time and way Thou wilt make it known to us. 
In Thy presence we shall see light and its lumi- 
nous rays will brighten all our path. Even the 
night of life's uncertainties shall be as the day, 
and the road we travel as the full-orbed noon. 

With confidence we enter this day, O God, 
and meet its tasks and hardships, fully assured 
and persuaded that Thou, who wast the abiding 
resource of the Saviour, wilt establish us in all 
our going, and bring us to the eventide with 
peace in the heart and praise on our lips. Until 
then, grant us the continued joy of Thy Pres- 
ence through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 



VIII 

GOD'S IMMANENT PRESENCE 
DIRECTS 

God is immanent and, therefore, we may live 
and work together. He is entrenched in nature 
and in us, and, by His beneficent presence brings 
us at last to the joyful unfolding of the buried 
magnificence of humanity. Did we understand 
His heart and purpose, we would love Him 
more, and, in consequence, live deeper and 
richer lives. The days of our sojourn in the 
world would be less dull, toil less hard, sacrifice 
not quite so burdensome, and the whole cycle of 
commonplace existence less wearisome. If we 
appreciated more His companionship, the good- 
ness and well-being of the world would be as- 
sured. Doubt and fear would be eliminated by 
the discovery that rivers of grace flow all 
around. Good cheer and optimism would fill the 
heart and keep it in line with the great inspira- 
tions of the world. The opulence of the Eternal 
would be the glorious heritage of all. 

It was Shakespeare who observed — 

"Our doubts are traitors,, 
And make us lose the good we oft might win 
By fearing to attempt;" 

and who elsewhere remarks, "The fault is ours, 

if we are underlings." It is clear, then, that if 

35 



36 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

we desire to be seen and felt, if we are restless to 
do things that will brighten and elevate the 
world, that God is our champion. We may not 
be spared Gethsemanes and Golgothas, but ul- 
timate triumph will not be withheld. It is a 
stimulating fact, that, wherever and whenever 
man gets close to God and seeks to express him- 
self in harmony with what he learns in those 
supreme moments, sooner or later he gains pres- 
tige and renown. He becomes a pillar of 
strength to the state ; the shadow of a great rock 
to the weary and heavy laden; a high tower of 
refuge to the careworn and distressed; and a 
gleaming pathway of inspiration to the sincere 
and earnest. No life or place is long obscure 
when God fills it. They are henceforth the 
Mecca of the world's heart. 

Such is the testimony of history. Far back 
in primitive days, there was a boy who belonged 
to a wandering tribe of Bedouins. As a lad, he 
was given to meditation and prayer. Different 
from others of his day, he looked beyond the 
material world and learned to commune with the 
Unseen. His was a constant effort to get into 
communion with someone — unseen but not unfelt 
— and who was necessary for his soul's peace. 
He gained what he sought ; and to-day the world 
honors his faith, because it connects our souls 
with the God he sought and found. With him 
God was pleased, and through him He blessed 
and enriched the world. 



GOD'S IMMANENT PRESENCE 37 

And who does not know the story of the 
Shepherd King? His is another instance where 
God communes with His humble children and 
lifts them out of obscurity to sit on thrones. 
So we come down the years and are surprised 
that, to this day, the same truth obtains. God 
lifts the obscure, the poor, the humble, the de- 
spised, and the oppressed, to places of prom- 
inence and usefulness. He visits a mining town 
and makes a poor youth the leader of a great 
revival, and henceforth Luther's name is a house- 
hold word. He enters the palace of a rich man, 
where a lad writes love-letters to Jesus and 
throws them out of the window in the hope that 
the Saviour might find them: he is the saintly 
Zinzendorf. He knocks at the door of a log 
cabin on the frontier of civilization and speaks 
His secrets to a lad, as he lies before the hearth, 
spelling his way to knowledge, and that boy be- 
comes the great Lincoln, the emancipator of the 
slave. It is a way God has of filling all our 
hours and days, in order that by His benign 
presence He may lead us to greater heights and 
inspire us to loftier deeds. Let us never forget 
that, when God lays His hand on us, we are 
known, felt, and loved forever. His touch is 
duty; His call is destiny. 

PRAYER 

Almighty God, who hast set Thy glory in the 
heavens, and art clothed with honor and maj- 



38 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

esty, we thank Thee, that Thou goest with us 
through the world, in which we stumble. Great 
and good that Thou art, needing not the serv- 
ice and praise of man, Thou hast condescended 
to be our constant companion and friend. 
Love, unspeakable love, greets us everywhere. 
Never mother breathed more tenderly on her 
child than Thou dost upon us ; nor spake with 
such cadences of solicitude as Thou. A father's 
pity is but a clew to Thy mercy, and a sire's 
strength is but dust to Thine omnipotence. 

Lead us gently through this day; strengthen 
our fellowship ; deepen our love for humanity 
and Thee ; and inspire us with the glorious hope 
of spiritual sonship. Thus shall the day be 
saved from languor and sin, and Thy great pur- 
poses concerning us be realized in grace. Amen. 



IX 

MUSIC IS A KEY TO LIFE 

Friend, had I my way with you to-day, so 
that with a word of magic or otherwise I could 
bestow upon you some rare benefit, I know very 
well what it would be. I would not discharge 
your debts ; neither would I give you vast es- 
tates, nor greater opportunities for gaining a 
livelihood. Not to do so would possibly appear 
to be a strange miscarriage of judgment, an ill- 
advised exercise of beneficent power, deserving 
blame and expostulation. But I would bestow 
none of these blessings. 

Debt, pain, hardship, and all the other ills 
that flesh is heir to, have a notable work to do, a 
useful and refining ministry to perform. They 
weigh heavy on the heart and brain, but they 
help to express what we essentially are. They 
mold, shape and chisel character into those heroic 
proportions that command respect and admira- 
tion, and clothe personality with sympathetic 
and enduring influence. 

Character is forged by heart-beats 
On the anvil Pain. 

Therefore, my gift to you would be one that 
will calm the heart in sorrow, stimulate it in love, 
inspire it in work, strengthen it in its effort to 



40 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

square its accounts with humanity and God. I 
would bestow a benefit that will deepen and 
sweeten life, send a warm thrill of brotherhood 
through society, and connect it with the beauty 
of the world and the glory of the ineffable 
heavens. My gift, had I it to confer, would be 
the faculty to create and appreciate music. 

Music is the divine art, and the faculty of 
music, next to love, God's rarest gift to man. 
It is that strange power of our being that en- 
ables us to master the noisy world and have 
bright and refreshing respite from its care. It 
is the key to the harmony of the world and a 
token granting the heart communion with the 
distant and exquisite echoes of the choir invisi- 
ble that makes beguiling music for all who can 
hear and heed. 

Music is the key to social well-being — a force 
that cements hearts and sends the galvanism of 
brotherhood around the world. It grips power- 
fully the social instincts of humanity and brings 
people together in ennobling bonds. In the 
dance and the majestic march, in the opera and 
in the church, in the public square and in the 
home, it breaks through the conventional, seizes 
upon the spirit, and inspires sociability. If two 
people, strangers to each other, stop at the 
same hotel in the distant village, and one of them 
can play or sing, they are no longer strangers 
after the first note is sounded. Music brings 
their hearts together. 



MUSIC IS A KEY TO LIFE 41 

So strong, effective and persuasive is this ele- 
ment in music that it conquers the most obsti- 
nate and inflexible opposition. In time of war 
it has been known to sweep the feeling of en- 
mity from contending foes. An old-time melody 
or song of love and home, unlocked the deeper 
nature of man and shook his humanity with a 
ground-swell of fraternity. 

Music is also a key to spiritual experience and 
attainment. St. Augustine, on visiting the 
church of Milan, said: "As the voice of music 
flowed into my ears truth was instilled in my 
heart, and the affections of purity overflowed in 
tears of joy." It has been so with us all — 
through music we have seen God. There have 
been times when we could not pray — the lips 
were dumb ; or speak — words failed to express 
the deep surgings of the soul. No one could 
pray for us : that would have been intrusion. 
No one could advise: that would have broken 
the charm. We were all emotion — deep, intense 
and elemental ! But we slipped away to a faith- 
ful instrument that we knew would respond to 
pain and sorrow, joy and gratitude, depression 
and aspiration, and, as the fingers glided over 
the keys, we were comforted. We knew and felt 
God. 

"We did not know what we were playing 
Or what we were dreaming then; 
But we struck one chord of music 
Like the sound of a great Amen. 



42 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

"It flooded the crimson twilight 

Like the close of an angel psalm; 
And it lay on the fevered spirit 
With a touch of infinite calm." 

So do chill of heart and confusion of brain 
give place to summer weather and repose. 
Music gives the soul access into an atmosphere 
full of pathos, beauty and resourcefulness. It 
leads the spirit to abodes where its feverishness 
is cooled, as was the great and troubled heart 
of Chopin, "by the falling tears of heaven." 
Nerve tension subsides, light emerges on the once 
anxious countenance, and cares, struggles and 
ambitions are forgotten. We are glad and at 
peace. We have been soothed and comforted in 
God. 

Just this we must never allow ourselves to 
forget. Music and God belong together. 
While music is in the heart, God is not far away. 
That is why the Passion music and the great 
hymns of the church never wear out. The In- 
finite speaks through them. That is why one 
listening to a great oratorio or hymn becomes 
conscious of evershadowing love. The aerial 
tenderness, subtle sweetness, vivid spontaneity of 
music immerses the heart in God — and it is sat- 
isfied. 

"The weary have life, and the hungry have bliss ; 
The mourner is cheered and the anxious have rest; 
And the guilt-burthened soul is no longer opprest." 



MUSIC IS A KEY TO LIFE 43 

PRAYER 

We bow in gratitude to Thee, God, as we 
see the magnificence of our nature in the light of 
Thy presence. We thank Thee that we are 
more than the clay that crumbles and is lost in 
the clod. Thou hast breathed into us the 
breath of life, and man is a living soul. Thou 
hast made him a little lower than the angels and 
hast crowned him with glory and honor. 

Help us, O God, to use each day the subtle, 
sensitive, and profound faculties of our nature 
by which we may attain beatitude in Thee. 
Help us to know that by them we may wrest 
harmony out of discord, peace out of affliction, 
hope out of despair, and joy out of calamity. 
Grant that we preserve inviolate these earthly 
tabernacles of the flesh, and through its win- 
dows may we see the glory and hear the soft, 
mellow, and inspiring voices of Paradise. As 
Thou hast promised, dwell with us evermore, 
and be Thou Thyself, the soul's music and 
eternal peace. — Amen. 



A NEGLECTED SPARK BURNS THE 
HOUSE 

This is an age that has revealed the impor- 
tance of the infinitely small, as a preceding one 
disclosed the infinitely large. By the use of 
many and ingenious instruments, our learned 
men have informed us as to the extent of the 
world in respect to time and space. We know 
now that the earth is much older and larger than 
once supposed. Millions of years lie behind us, 
in which the world evolved from chaos into a 
habitable dwelling place and theater for human 
life. Billions of miles surround us, in which 
neighboring worlds evolve their destiny. That 
was the work of yesterday. 

To-day our attention is called to the infinitely 
small — to trifles, specs and atoms ; and we are 
told in careful scientific language that they are 
the foundation of existence. We are, each one 
of us, a universe of life-cells and electrons ! The 
little thing is the big thing, and determines life. 
Therefore, it has come about that we know with 
a certainty that an insect may devastate a 
harvest ; a caterpillar divest a forest ; a microbe 
deplete a city; a spark destroy a world. Life 
and happiness swing on trifles as their fulcra. 

How important, then, to begin each day with 
44 



A NEGLECTED SPARK 45 

clean eyes, a pure heart, and a steady will. It 
may be quite natural to start the day with the 
feeling that you have been unjustly dealt with 
yesterday, and that to-day you will square 
your account with your enemy. Surely there 
can be no wrong in that ! Everybody does 
it! It is just a small matter between you and 
him. 

Small matter? You are harboring a viper 
in your bosom, and his deadly fangs can harm 
no one so much as you. You are concealing a 
flame that may, with little fanning, flare into a 
conflagration. Your account with your enemy 
may be small, but brooding over it, enlarges it 
and gives it scope. To do so is to allow evil the 
privilege to take root in soil that was intended 
to grow the fruits of the Spirit. To harbor ill- 
will vitiates noble thinking throughout the day 
and injects bitterness into the hours. It is grit 
to the machinery of thought, that wears out the 
bearings and retards their movement. It is a 
kind of electric poison that, once it touches the 
system, benumbs and paralyzes it. Bear malice 
through the day and at eventide you will not be 
able to pray or be glad. You mean yourself no 
harm, but malice is venomous and destructive to 
no one more than yourself. Malice is always 
sure of its victim. In its policy of "getting 
square" it is sure to trick, track and trounce, 
at least one person, meant for better things. 
Yes, it gets its victim; it grips his throat, stabs 



46 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

his heart and grinds his body underfoot I But 
the horror of it — the victim is yourself ! 

"For evil poisons; malice shafts 
Like boomerangs return; 
Inflicting wounds that will not heal 
While rage and anger burn." 

If bearing malice could be concealed and re- 
mained a private matter, its influence and dam- 
age would be less pronounced. But there is the 
rub. It determines life relations. It stalks the 
public streets and challenges attention from 
house-tops. It is read in books and in the head- 
lines of the press. It determines votes in the 
Senate and issues edicts from the throne. It is 
seen in the antics of our fellows who walk 
around the block in order to avoid a brother 
man. It is seen in board fences erected between 
adjoining yards. It is observed in disrupted 
homes. Bearing malice is public property. 

I once knew a family where husband and wife 
resided under the same roof for years without 
exchanging a word. Once their love was just 
as ideal and romantic as yours or mine. The 
day could not close early enough for the proud 
man to return to the idol of his heart. She was 
the pilot of his fate ; the star of his destiny ; the 
divinity he worshipped. Now both their hearts 
were like lampless seas, concealing discord and 
ruin! 



A NEGLECTED SPARK 47 

How came about this fool's play? What ter- 
rible energy shattered the home? What was it 
converted the fireside into a prison and made 
the home a sepulcher for their happiness? 
It was a little misunderstanding that they 
neglected to forgive and forget. Once it was 
but a spark; now a flaring flame of destruc- 
tion! 

Such is the malignant influence of bearing ill- 
will against another, as was recently shown by 
Leo Tolstoi, in a story of his. In it he de- 
scribes the prosperity of two prominent peas- 
ants residing in an obscure Russian village. 
For years they lived together in peace, delight- 
ing in each other, and seeking each other's hap- 
piness. But in the course of time the sons 
came to the head of the families and the old 
order changed. A bitter feud arose, full of 
malice, hate and bitterness, involving abuse and 
murder, and ended at last in the burning of 
half the village. It was caused by a trifle — 
the laying of an egg on the wrong side of the 
fence ! 

Ill-will, by nursing, may become a ruling pas- 
sion, as is attested by history. It may be the 
mother of seven evil spirits, each more diabolical 
than itself. It was so in Scotland, where fam- 
ily quarrels became a tribal passion sufficiently 
powerful to involve the nation in war. The 
War of the Roses, which desolated England for 
thirty years, grew out of family rivalries. A 



48 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

quarrel among children over a grasshopper pro- 
voked a terrible Indian War, resulting in the 
spoliation of both. Thus has malice wrought 
havoc and ruin everywhere. It has retarded re- 
form and defeated justice. And if you will 
give it attention, it will despoil this day, and 
every day you live, of beauty and peace. A lit- 
tle courtship, and it becomes a terrible monster 
of diabolical meanness, that you can neither 
tame, chain nor control. If neglected, it is the 
spark that burns the house. 

We do not wonder that Jesus said, "Let not 
the sun go down on your wrath." He knew its 
virulence and strength. He knew that, once it 
took root in the heart it would bear a harvest 
of violence and crime. He knew it would dry 
up the spring of love. He knew it would leave 
its maniacal lines on the face, its glare in the 
eyes, its grooves on the brain, and mar with its 
fiendish signature the brow of men. Therefore, 
if this day is to be secure against its malev- 
olence, and we are to be glad, let us pluck it out 
of the heart, kill it off, choke it, quench it ! It is 
the spark that burns the house. 

It is said of the Pythagoreans that, if at any 
time they happened to be provoked to anger 
and abusive language before sunset they would 
take each other's hands, and embracing, make 
up their quarrel. It is the right way — the only 
way that saves the day. 



A NEGLECTED SPARK 49 

"Then let your secret thoughts be fair — 
They have a vital part, and share 
In shaping words and moulding fate; 
God's system is so intricate." 

PRAYER 

O God, we thank Thee for the divinity of our 
nature that remonstrates with us when we do 
wrong, and approves our conduct when we do 
good. It is Thy hint to us that in all the cir- 
cumstances and exigencies of life, we may be 
like Thyself. Like Thee we may triumph over 
anger, hate, malice, jealousy, and revenge, 
through saving and forgiving love. Thou hast 
placed a fountain of love in every life, and its 
streams are for the refreshment and enrichment 
of the world. Help us this day to give scope 
to love, and grant that we may be gentle, pa- 
tient, true, and strong. 

We may not get our due this day, but if we 
are divine, we can afford to wait. The world is 
not crowning Thee as it ought, yet Thou art 
patient. In love Thou makest the rain to fall on 
the evil and the good, and in great mercy and 
solicitude Thou abidest the return of Thy for- 
getful and erring children. Like Thee we can 
wait, for love is its own great reward. Help us, 
then, O God, to do unto others, as we would 
have them do unto us, through Jesus Christ, our 
Lord. Amen. 



XI 

RELIGION IS ESSENTIAL TO WORK 

Some time ago a very prominent man of af- 
fairs, sitting with me in the twilight, volunteered 
to say, "You cannot imagine how happy I feel 
when I can begin the day with God. It gives me 
a good start and brings me to the eventide 
happy and content." He was not aware of the 
fact, but my friend gave expression to a senti- 
ment which is characteristic of all true manhood 
and womanhood. He was speaking the lan- 
guage of the human heart, which knows that re- 
ligion is the mainspring of life, the great dy- 
namic of political and social evolution. 

It is, therefore, a commonplace to observe that 
religion is essential to life and work. But the 
observation needs to be made, because it is so 
frequently forgotten. Religion makes clear the 
one and inspires the other. The former it robes 
with idealism and the latter it endows with end- 
less power for good. It is the eternal spring of 
charity, which makes service sane and sweet ; and 
the virgin-mother of purity, that shields against 
wrong. It inspires and conserves the humane, 
and gives scope and freedom to the divine. 
Without it, we would be very unhappy ; and life, 
deprived of its dynamic, would be like a foun- 
tain without water. 

50 






RELIGION ESSENTIAL TO WORK 51 

It is the vision of God in the soul that gives 
us life's bearings, and lifts humanity above the 
routine of work, enabling us to see through the 
mists of the tangible the hand of God, which is 
never idle in its devotion to the welfare and hap- 
piness of man. It is this, despite hardship, dis- 
appointment and failure ; when our larders are 
bare and our hands tremble with weakness ; and 
the future shows a threatening face ; that con- 
vinces us God is here, and knows and cares. 
Religion assures us that 

Beneath the world we touch and hold 

Pulsates God's loving heart; 
Its warmth and sympathy, of old 
Have made the human spirit bold 

To act a noble part. 

I am glad, and so are you, that this is so ; for 
it breaks the monotony of work and fills it and 
our workshops with variety and pleasantness. 
There is often a sameness about work that blunts 
our sensibilities. It can be borne for a while 
without inconvenience and loss. A man can go 
on planing and joining, chiseling and hammer- 
ing, and find comfort in them. But there 
comes also a time when the tumultuous noises of 
the shop and factory lose their strange charm 
and music, unless the soul is invested with the 
beauty and inspired with the strength of God's 
presence and purpose. There is only one thing 
saves Stradivarius from ennui and that is the 



52 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

vision which anticipates for him the great music 
that some day will flow from the dulcet strings 
of the instruments he has fashioned and wrought. 
Columbus is saved from despair as he sails a 
virgin sea of moral ambition and desire, through 
the conviction that God anticipates his course 
and directs the tides. And you and I in our 
several vocations and occupations retain con- 
fidence and courage, because religion assures 
us, each has his place and work. 

"Thy lot is appointed, go follow its hest; 
Thy way is begun, thou must walk, and not rest ; 
For sorrow and care cannot alter the case; 
And running, not raging, will win thee the race." 

Then religion is essential to work because we 
are greater than anything which we may achieve. 
Your work and mine, however noble and useful, 
expresses only a fraction of what we are. 
Work is not a sufficient vehicle to convey all 
that needs expression. After we have wrought 
our best handiwork, there are still ocean depths 
within, which no material plummet can sound or 
measure. The picture just painted, or poem 
written, or song breathed, convey a mere frac- 
tion of what we are. We have been made in a 
large mould, and God alone, by what He is and 
commands, can evoke and unfold the sovereign 
life of the soul. Not until we taste the hospi- 
tality of God do we feel at home. Religion 
turns the key, faith opens the door, hope crosses 



RELIGION ESSENTIAL TO WORK 5S 

the threshold, and love sits down to enjoy and 
serve. 

It is true of us all. Physicians, lawyers, and 
preachers ; accountants, carpenters, and work- 
ers in brass and stone; — all aspire for infinite 
fellowship. Like Gladstone, who returned home 
one day from Parliament, crowned with the 
plaudits of a grateful people, we wonder what 
God has to say and give. Gladstone stood that 
evening at the nursery door of his grandchildren 
listening to their prayers. His soul was pant- 
ing for God, for the living God. 

Now, it is the purpose of religion to link us 
with God. While we perform our work in the 
various places of God's Cathedral-World, re- 
ligion bids us look up and catch the twilight 
playing in the rafters, and beckons us to heed 
the exquisite music of nature's pan-pipes, as 
they fill the vast dome of the universe. 

Then we need religion because we are so often 
misunderstood. We put conscience and prayer, 
faith and passion into what we do; lay our 
plans skillfully and prosecute them with good 
heart and generous impulses ; but when we have 
done all, we are subjected to the rude bombard- 
ment of foes. Tears and bitterness are our 
daily bread, unless He who is sovereign master 
leads beside still waters and prepares every 
needed good in the midst of our enemies. And, 
if above the din and turmoil of the world, we can 
hear His voice and see His face, which are the 



54 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

privileges of religion, we shall not be greatly 
moved, for "Jehovah knoweth the days of the 
perfect; and their inheritance shall be forever." 

PRAYER 

O God, Our Father, conscious of our need 
and mindful of Thy goodness, we bow before 
Thee and seek the help and inspiration that 
communion with Thee assures. Here where we 
are, is Thy mercy-seat; for wherever is the sin- 
cere cry of faith, there is also the answering 
ear of love. 

It is good for us to begin the day with Thee, 
for Thy presence is so stimulating, Thy pa- 
tience so gracious, and Thy love so compas- 
sionate, that we cannot leave Thee without pro- 
found harmonies stirring the soul. Come what 
may, let not their charm and efficacy be lost, 
but continue with us until every place shall be 
glad and every heart be saved, through Jesus 
Christ Our Lord. Amen. 



XII 
GOD HAS NEED OF US 

God's purposes are realized through us. He 
needs us. Just as a business, planned and in- 
spired by a central head, is, in the last analysis 
dependent upon others, so the great work of 
making the world what it ought to be, rests 
upon the shoulders of humanity. The deep 
things of God are meditated by consecrated 
character, and no act of life is more sublime 
than that in which a soul definitely and irrev- 
ocably allies itself to God in indissoluble ties. 

But how many fall short of so wide, lofty, 
and dignified a profession! Through what we 
are and seek, not all of us are ministers of God 
unto moral, social and religious well-being. 
We may be positive hinderances, and so retard 
and arrest the progress of things. We are not 
the engines of power, the springs of inspiration, 
that we might be ; and hence the public life of 
the world still gets its strength from a few 
choice people, to whom God whispers His se- 
crets and enriches with His grace. In every 
community two or three people, who challenge 
thought, inspire patriotism, stimulate action, 
deal justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with 
God, are the leaven of the Eternal Heart to re- 
deem society. The saviours of the world are 
few, and we may not be among them. They 
55 



56 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

are those rare men and women who have no 
ambition save this, that they may be used by 
Omnipotence for the enrichment and perfection 
of life. 

In a way, of course, it may be argued that 
all persons minister to a common end. Every 
man has value. He is of account. It mat- 
ters little which side he takes: ultimately he 
contributes to the common good. The ag- 
nostic, for instance, cannot be said to be a 
champion of faith; and yet it is profoundly 
true that, because of his work and influence, 
Christian thinkers have been stimulated to 
greater accuracy, clearness, and consecration. 
The influence of the agnostic has not been en- 
tirely negative, — the fact is, he has destroyed 
little or nothing; he has shaken some things 
terribly, but the Rock of Ages never. It is not 
pleasant to have men and women in the com- 
munity, who will lie, rob and murder; who will 
debauch the most sacred instincts of nature, 
victimize the weak, vilify the strong, persecute 
the true, discredit the just; and yet it is 
through the presence and pressure of such, that 
every department of municipal and national 
government has been strengthened and fortified. 
Moreover, it must be added that whenever there 
is any advance made toward greater security 
against evil and wrong-doing, that advance is 
made in the first instance by specialists, who 
scent the danger and sound an alarm. When 



GOD HAS NEED OF US 57 

the great dam broke which inundated and de- 
molished Johnstown, many lives and much prop- 
erty were saved, because one only man took to 
horse and dashed down the doomed valley shout- 
ing— "Fly to the hills ! Fly to the hills !" If 
to-day we have greater immunity against diph- 
theria and the plague, it is owing to the fact 
that somewhere in the rank and file of our com- 
mon humanity, were men and women consecrated 
to the purpose of disarming those enemies. 
If there is less pelf and more principle in the 
administration of government, it is due to men 
of deep moral purpose and passion, who, at the 
risk of personal loss, maintained that "A pub- 
lic office is a public trust." If there is a feeling 
of brotherhood pervading our communal life, 
akin to that dwelling in the heart of Jesus 
Christ, it is due to men and women who dared 
to be big enough to love all men, hard as that 
may be. The whole matter resolves itself to 
this: the world moves in the steps of its repre- 
sentative men and women — its leaders, its heroes, 
and its prophets. The wheels of life are driven 
and directed by the champions of God. 

I can think of nothing more heroic and stim- 
ulating than positive and irrevocable surrender 
of one's life to God. It is the one act of the 
will that connects the soul with the great stream 
of inspiration that runs in glorious sequence 
through the universe. It is the one act that 
will save us from days that drag and from work 



58 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

that disgusts. Under the compulsion of spir- 
itual forces, by the sway and supremacy of 
transcendent emotions and ideas, as they come 
teeming from the heart of God to inspire the 
heart, enrich the mind and arouse the will, we 
shall have power to convert the places we fill 
into precincts of light and the homes in which 
we dwell into habitations of peace. We shall 
not tire nor be discouraged, but live in the joy 
and rapture of the higher powers, and exhale 
a fragrance as generous and good as a field of 
clover blossoms, that thrives under the breath 
and warmth and strength of divine energy. 

Every day, by inspiration's lofty art, 
Shall be a sabbath for the heart; 
Toil be worship, and worship rest — 
Deep and fragrant, large and blest! 

PRAYER 

O God, Our Father, every day we desire to 
approximate the life of Jesus Christ Our Lord, 
and therefore beseech Thee so to free us from 
the bondage of the carnal, that Thy purpose 
concerning us may be realized. Lift us above 
all meanness and cowardice, to those heights 
where Thy spirit may communicate Thy life 
and character. Show us our duty and help us 
to perform it. Send us where we are needed 
and make us thankful. Defend us against evil 
and prosper us in every good, for Christ's sake, 
unto whom we shall give all the praise and glory. 
Amen. 



XIII 

CHRIST IS THE LIGHT THAT NEVER 
FAILS 

Once the disciples were passing through a 
dark hour, when the light came upon them in 
the person and presence of Christ. To that 
moment they were deeply distressed and woe- 
fully disheartened. They were in a state of 
panic, and every footfall that penetrated the 
walls, within which they were closeted, repre- 
sented a crouching foe, a demon of darkness, 
ready to pounce upon them and work their ruin. 
The doors were locked, and they walked in the 
subdued lamp light like men who had been driven 
to their last cover. The foundations of their 
hope were crumbling and they were sinking to 
despair, when suddenly the Light stood in their 
midst. Then were the disciples glad when they 
saw the Lord. 

It is always so. When the troubled heart 
and the Saviour meet, sorrow merges into joy 
— joy unspeakable and full of glory. When 
people who have dwelt in the darkness ; who have 
been in the precincts of desolation ; who have 
been exposed to the terror of night and the 
arrow that flieth by day; who have felt the 
chill and loneliness of misfortune, the sting of 
defeat, the pangs of remorse, the shame and 
59 



60 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

guilt of evil-doing — when they see the sun-lit 
face of Jesus Christ they are glad. His pres- 
ence is the dayspring of felicity. 

Do we not all know it? Have we not learned 
the lesson of solace and inspiration in the 
chamber of sickness? What a feeling of calm 
and courage, cheer and relief came over us 
when, after long and anxious vigils by the side 
of a sick child, at last the rosy-tinted morn 
crowned the eastern sky, and the sun rose to 
send his warm rays generously through the win- 
dow to where we were fighting the battle of our 
life! What superb medicine for body and 
spirit! What sublime exhilaration — so to for- 
tify the soul and cool the fevered brow! Sor- 
row may endure for the night, but joy cometh 
in the morning. 

So are the hours we spend with the Saviour 
and the days we live in the consciousness of in- 
finite love. They have about them the exuber- 
ance and flush of the Dawn. They lighten and 
brighten the soul. In them we are like the east, 
streaming with the light of the rising sun; and 
like the west, with its coronal of gold on the 
mountains and its flaming saffron on the clouds. 
Everything about us is bathed with light — be 
cause 

Shadows cannot hide Him 

Or forestall His grace — 
Gleaming through their darkness 

Is His loving face. 



LIGHT THAT NEVER FAILS 61 

Therefore, this day we need not walk in dark- 
ness. Jesus Christ knows the way, and will 
turn the light upon it. If we trust Him, in 
His own good time He will give the mind or the 
heart the needed hint, that rescues from uncer- 
tainty and despair. He will not suffer us to 
walk unattended. He is our friend and will 
take to-day's journey with us. He is what the 
headlight is to the locomotive engineer, and 
much more. His hand is on the hand that holds 
the throttle. He is strength of arm, clearness 
of vision and enduring confidence. He is so 
vitally one with us that each one may truthfully 
say 

Yet not alone my spirit gropes 
The night, the sky, the sod; 
"Fear not/' a voice within me speaks, 
"I am thy friend — thy God." 

And so I walk with patience on, 

Full glad He is my guide, 
And leads me gently to those bournes 

For which I've prayed and sighed. 

It is God's way of ridding the world of its 
shadows and obsequious hours. We cannot 
eliminate any of them, but He can shine them 
out, and does. It is part of wisdom, then, to 
keep our faces toward the light. If we are in 
the dark about anything that relates to our life 
and so involves love, peace, virtue and happi- 



m KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

ness ; if we are in the shadow land of uncer- 
tainty; if we are perplexed — let us open the 
windows of the soul to the light. Ours, too, 
shall be the rapturous experience of the poet 
who sang: 

"I heard the voice of Jesus say, 
I am this dark world's light; 
Look unto Me, thy morn shall rise, 
And all thy day be bright. 

"I looked to Jesus, and I found 
In Him my Star, My Sun; 
And in that light of life I'll walk 
Till traveling days are done." 

PRAYEU 

We thank Thee, O God, that this day may be 
a Pentecost, full of the quickening, consolation 
and spiritual enrichment of the Holy Ghost. 
This is so, because we began in Thee and are 
Thy offspring, and Thy presence follows us 
everywhere with the combined solicitude of pa- 
ternal and maternal love. The light of Thy 
countenance is never turned from us. Even 
life's shadows insist that the light still shines, 
Thy love still glows and Thy mind comprehends. 

Help us to stand in the light, that its heat 
and passion, wisdom and power may go through 
us, for the enrichment of the mind, inspiration 
of the heart and the stimulation of the will. 



LIGHT THAT NEVER FAILS 63 

So shall our fellowship with the hours be sweet, 
and our journey with Thee through the world 
be one of continued surprise and blessedness, 
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 



XIV 

BECAUSE HE HAS THE LIGHT HE 

SINGS 

He goes down the way singing! 

What a picture ! You are not quite sure 
about the music ; but he sings. It is not a deep- 
toned bass you hear, nor is it light and pa- 
thetic enough to be a tenor ; it is not like the 
round, even notes of an alto, nor yet is it the 
sprightly voice of a soprano. It is neither — 
and yet it is music. Perhaps it is a kind of 
blend between the noisy drum and the sonorous 
trombone — you are not quite sure. The mu- 
sical dictionary has no name for it, but it is 
music. You listen to it, and you are positive 
the man and his heart are having a real song 
service "atween themselves and God." His 
heart is in tune, his lips vibrant, and his arms 
swing to the rhythm of sound. He is a musical 
service epitomized. 

Every person may be a Boston Symphony 
Orchestra, or Opera Company in himself. Just 
as great a success — with the pit, the boxes and 
galleries of his being crowded with the choicest 
spirits of earth ! Yes, all that ; without ex- 
pensive advertising, or indiscreet publicity, or 
compromise with the world. If his heart is 
in tune he is his own advertisement; he is the 
64 



BECAUSE HE HAS THE LIGHT 65 

public; he is the world! But his heart must 
be in tune. Then you have music ; not lip- 
music, which is as evanescent as the mist; but 
heart-music, which is a bounding water-brook, 
refreshing everything within its reach. 

Now, it is significant of Christianity that is 
the religion of music, and is the power of God 
that sets the heart in tune. It has the magic 
that evokes, even from broken reeds, the sub- 
limest and profoundest harmonies. Mary Mag- 
dalene, under its matchless appeal, sings as joy- 
ously as the saintly Deborah. If there is just 
one string left unbroken in the human heart, it 
makes that sound and sings ; in an instant the 
prelude of a new song-service is in progress, 
and the finale of the program ends only with the 
loud "Amen" in the skies. 

On that account to Christianity must be at- 
tributed the greatest music of the world. The 
great symphonies that delight, the oratorios 
that inspire, the operas that revel in ravishing 
sounds, the hymns of the church, and the lulla- 
bies of the nursery are the product of the Chris- 
tian heart. Christianity has this power be- 
cause it has the light that never fails. Jesus 
Christ lights up everyone that steps within the 
circle of His influence. He does for man what 
the sun does for the world; He fills humanity 
with the joyous light of Immanuel's Land. 
Wherever Christianity goes, it awakens the mu- 
sical faculty. It is like the dawn of the morn- 



66 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

ing, when the sun dispels the darkness and 
every tree has a choir of singing birds 1 

If you have ever watched the sun rise, you 
know just what I mean. With light comes 
freedom. The mist that hugged and hid the 
river lifts, and is lost in the illimitable sky; the 
crouching, wild beast stirs in his cavern; the 
closed buds of the water-lily expand; the trout 
leaps in the limpid stream; the birds sing in the 
trees, and the hum of the bee fills the air. With 
light comes emancipation. 

Just so is it, when the Sun of Righteousness 
shines upon us. The blinding mists of doubt 
are pierced with rays of light; the bondage 
of darkness is broken; sin is disarmed; despair 
rebuked; fear dispelled; and the soul is brought 
into peace and harmony with God. The heart 
sings with sheer joy, and the lips make music. 
The Christian sings because he must. 

Once, at the close of day, while walking down 
a country road to the Delaware, a day laborer, 
covered with soot and grime, for he came from 
a foundry, disclosed a life secret. Spoken in 
the twilight, its impression could never be for- 
gotten. Then, too, the scenic beauty of the 
Delaware country, with the Blue Mountains 
bathed in the light of the setting sun, the silver 
stream of the Cherry Creek threading its way 
to the river, the profusion of golden-rod and 
wild vines, and the fragrance of buckwheat blos- 
soms, have given that secret unforgettable 



BECAUSE HE HAS THE LIGHT 67 

charm and loveliness. As we approached his 
humble cottage, almost hid by a clump of cedars, 
he said, "I know Mary loves me by the way she 
places the light in the window. It is standing 
there now." 

So it was ! A star of love in a wayside cot- 
tage ! Think of it ! Though we were fast 
friends, conversation ceased. But love was not 
silent. After a little, deep and subdued as the 
twilight, he began to hum a tune. What it 
was I could not ascertain. I had never heard 
anything just like it, and yet it had a famil- 
iarity to it that fit into every niche of my being. 
It was music — deep and unforgettable. And I 
knew a song service was in progress in the 
audience room of my friend's heart. A stray 
bit of it came to me through the walls of secrecy 
and exclusiveness. But the music was there, 
and its lyric pathos stirs me yet. 

The Christian sings because he must. He 
knows he is loved by the way God has placed 
the Light. The Light is in the window! It 
is everywhere. Going down the crowded Broad- 
ways of the world, he can see it: every Broad- 
way leads to Grace Church. Every country 
road leads to the Light in the window. Every- 
where it gleams with perfectly bewildering en- 
richment. It inspires music in the heart. 
Music — that rises to the very doors of Heaven, 
and through the gates ajar, modulates into the 
sweeter harmonies of Paradise. 



68 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

PRAYER 

We thank Thee, O God, that every day be- 
gins with a miracle of light and so gives us a 
hint as to what we are to be as we live and 
work. When the light comes all nature re- 
joices. The dawn converts the world into a 
sanctuary of praise and worship. Everything 
abounds with the exuberance and freshness of 
re-creation. 

So help us to live, and grant that we may 
carry into each day the buoyancy and rejuv- 
enescence of spiritual health, that will 
strengthen the weak, console the sad, inspire 
the despairing, stimulate the irresolute, and 
heal the sick. We realize, O God, that our 
hands must be on the world's hammers, plows, 
looms, and engines; but grant us to know that 
we have power within us to convert them into 
instruments of music, and so have the means 
of making every place an abode of refreshment 
and beneficence. Help us to walk in the light 
as Jesus did; so shall we have holy fellowship 
one with another and with Thee, and at last 
attain beatitude. Amen. 



XV 

BUOYANCY— THAT'S IT 

Just so ! How soon we recognize what we 
want, appreciate what we lack, and delight in 
the charm and vigor of exuberant personality ! 
A fine face, a beautiful soul, a well-poised head, 
moving in harmony with pure manhood and 
womanhood — what can be more stimulating and 
sublime? A noble life is the cynosure of all 
eyes and, as such, creates its own world. It 
broods over imperfection and chaos, and order 
and beauty emerge. Wherever its influence ex- 
tends, is lavish summer — abounding beauty, sun- 
light and good cheer. Its presence is prophetic 
of that clime where 

"Eyes forget the tears they have shed, 
The heart forgets its sorrow and ache." 

That person going down the road with a 
swing and dash, with smiling face and rollick- 
ing good humor, has called these things to mind. 
He is a kind of walking symphony. He is the 
inspiration of Arcadia, and, when he dies, every 
organ in the village will weep to the movement 
of Chopin's Funeral March. His clarion 
voice, spry step and democratic nature are irre- 
sistible. He is the moral and religious tonic 
of the settlement! 

69 



70 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

How fine you felt when he said, " Good morn- 
ing!" He came like a breeze of summer 
weather, and the dewy grasses, as well as the 
village maidens, waved in recognition of his 
presence. At the sonorous intonations of his 
voice the robins stirred in their nests and trilled 
a cordial response, the blue bird warbled a 
nuptial lay, and Mary Jane in the kitchen was 
so taken with rapture that she dropped a china 
plate! His buoyancy and healthy-mindedness 
have worked miracles ; there has been no suicide 
in Arcadia since he was sixteen, and that was 
so long ago that few of us remember it. He is 
a hive of health and sweetness, and has made 
a "Don't Worry Club" unnecessary. He is the 
medicine man of the tribe, and his great remedy 
is the Oil of Mirth, which may be had at Joy's 
Apothecary's Shop, down at Five Corners! 
May his tribe increase \ 

But what is the secret of his buoyancy, or its 
distinguishing mark? What noun or adjective 
gives the needed clue? By what emotions do 
we know it best? Wherein lies its optimism? 
What dynamic force pervades his being and 
makes him a living magnet ? 

His is a life of spirit, dash and transcenden- 
talism. Therefore is he happy as a lark flying 
in the face of the rising sun. Viewed from one 
side, you are tempted to liken his good nature 
to the animal spirits of a boy, who can run like 
a colt, kick like a calf and turn things over like 



BUOYANCY— THAT'S IT 71 

a goat! Observed from another point of view, 
it is that superb brightness which is the result 
of the immediate indwelling of God's Holy 
Spirit. On its lower side it is little more than 
the spirit of mischief or nonsense; on its higher 
side it is the sublime exhilaration of spiritual 
communion. It is both the spirit of play and 
of prayer; a life of jubilant confidence that 
knows itself to be one with God and feels every 
hour the influx of the Deific Breath. His hand 
clasp puts soul into one because the central 
soul of the universe permeates and wells up in 
his being. His is a happy and radiant soul, 
because he lives in the all-encompassing and all- 
pervading presence of God. He is a man of 
poise and peace, full of dash, courage and spirit, 
that, more than any other, reminds you that he 

"Is happy as a lover; and attired 
With sudden brightness^ like a man inspired." 

Superior? Yes, very much so! Nothing 
daunts him or disturbs his confidence. Once 
he stood by the side of a newly made grave. 
His heart was steeped in grief almost beyond 
the power of endurance. He wept as only a 
strong man can weep; his majestic form trem- 
bled like an oak in the storm; he was riveted 
to the spot — his love was buried there! All 
Arcadia mourned with him, but he was the first 
to revive our courage. He said, "She is still 
mine — and yours ; let us be calm and abide God's 



72 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

will." Once he was poor in worldly goods, but 
he was never a beggar. With quiet dignity he 
plied his tools and filled his place, until one day 
the Wheel of Fortune turned, and he was 
Arcadia's chief citizen. But opulence and ele- 
gance did not despoil him of sincerity and sim- 
plicity. He rose; but he did not forget those 
farther down the road. He lifted Arcadia with 
him. 

And it was he who said, "Good morning 1" 
Superior? He has something within him that 
is just as hopeful in the storm, as robust in 
misfortune, as steady in bereavement, as when 
the day is bright, fortune smiles and life is a 
perpetual springtide. We never think of him 
as a saint, but his presence seldom fails to give 
the red-line of emphasis to the philosophy of 
the Christ, who said, "I am not alone, because 
the Father is with me," and "He is greater than 
all." 

Then for spontaneity and freshness he has no 
equal. His buoyant life is always bubbling 
over. It is like a perennial spring. He is not 
like the azalea that blooms only once a year; 
but like its more common neighbor, the gera- 
nium, that has a flower for every day alike — 
spring, summer, autumn and winter. He is like 
the smile of the sun, big and broad enough to 
take in friend and foe. He is like a new bit of 
landscape, whose rusticity and peace, shady 
nooks and crystal rocks, verdant fields and 



BUOYANCY— THAT'S IT 73 

murmuring brooks, are a constant source of 
surprise. Fresh as the spring, fruitful as the 
summer, mellow as the autumn and sublime as 
winter's snow-capped peaks and hills, he lives 
and works among us. His buoyancy is the in- 
spiration of Arcadia, and his goodness is a well- 
spring of optimism. 

But he is getting old. The coroner, who is 
a very close friend of his, swears with uplifted 
hand, "He has three gray hairs !" If — if he 
should die — who will take his place? 

PRAYER 

We thank Thee, O God, that there are lives 
so noble, true and radiant, that we cannot look 
at them without thinking of Thee. They medi- 
ate Thy love and presence, Thy sympathy and 
eternal goodness, and lead us to desire Thee 
more than ever. Thou art in their lives ; and 
their nobility and greatness are the glimmer of 
Thine infinite glory. 

Come and abide with us this day, and give us 
the force, freshness and fervor of the God-en- 
dowed. And, if it is not wrong to ask it, clothe 
us all with such gifts and graces, that, when we 
mingle with the world, it may say, "Surely God 
is in this place and we knew it not." Thine shall 
be all the glory forever and ever. Amen. 



XVI 

THE GODWARD THOUGHT REJUV- 
ENATES 

To-day is the thirteenth! There, now, you 
need not charge me with being superstitious. 
It just occurred to me; it is my day of luck! 
Invariably on this day of the month, the Stock 
Exchange of Happiness credits me with large 
dividends. Therefore, all hail! The Thir- 
teenth ! 

It is so with all of us here in Arcadia. On 
the thirteenth we have no strikes, no quarrels 
and brawls — just because we do not have them 
any day! The mills hum, the trolleys run, and 
business is large, brisk and good-natured. 
Really we are a generous and friendly lot. In 
spite of the peculiarities of some of our neigh- 
bors, the eccentricities of our brothers and sis- 
ters, we feel no discomfort. We eat three meals 
a day and give thanks. The thirteenth is a 
very bright day, because it has a mysterious 
way of reflecting all the others. It is a way 
nature has in our province of squaring her ac- 
counts, and seldom, if ever, does anything go 
wrong. 

Yet there is a reason! The Thirteenth is a 
peculiar day in our settlement in this respect, 
that in it we seek to emulate and approximate 
74 



THE GODWARD THOUGHT 75 

the example of our chief citizen, the Hon. A. 
Bouyant Hart. We make it the occasion of 
much thought, and meditate upon two or three 
things that now, for the benefit of mankind, are 
disclosed to the world. 

We think much of the Show-Room of The 
Father, in which He has stored the inexhaust- 
ible treasures of His boundless grace. We 
ponder the gifts of His love; meditate on His 
many precious promises ; and, so far as it is 
possible, try to look into His face. And a 
wonderful radiancy comes over our town, that 
cannot be attributed to the sun, or the land- 
scape, or the board boulevards, or magnificent 
homes ; it is too soulful and ethereal for that — 
it is the reflection of God. David, the sweet 
singer of Israel, puts our experience into an 
epigram when he says, "They looked unto Him 
and their faces became radiant." 

Children of the rich and well-to-do acquire a 
swing of ease, buoyancy and grace, because they 
are in an environment that is favorable. Home 
is the Show-Room of their father, where pic- 
tures, bric-a-brac, rich Persian rugs, finely 
wrought curtains, exquisitely carved furniture, 
expensive musical instruments — the entire equip- 
ment from the basement to the conservatory on 
the roof — abound with wealth and goodness. 
Abundance makes them to abound. 

Just so do we begin to abound when we see 
the unsearchable resources of God in things 



76 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

around: in the fascination of the hills, in the 
fruitful expanse of the fields, in unsuspected 
and winding vales, in the joyous light of the 
sun, and in the sublimer and more spiritual 
glory of the stars. 

"Nature's self 
By all varieties of human love 
Assisted/' 

leads us to ponder the beguiling fulness and 
unfathomableness of things, the prolixity and 
solemnity of Creation and Creator, and before 
we know what has transpired we are buoyed up 
in heart, are confident in spirit and filled with 
strength in the soul. Beholding the wealth of 
Our Father in Heaven, we become rich, confi- 
dent and radiant. 

Then, too, here in Arcadia we think of the 
world as God's School Room, in which we learn 
the geography of the mind, the grammar of the 
heart and the astronomy of the immortal soul. 
And it is wonderful what an inspiring place the 
world becomes, when it is so conceived! It is 
a place teeming with visions, imageries and in- 
toxicating inspirations, helping us to approxi- 
mate the poise and buoyancy of our chief citi- 
zen. 

Only once were we shocked in our ideas of 
things, and that came about through a boy. 
The schools opened that day, and, evidently 






THE GODWARD THOUGHT 77 

having some feeling in the matter, he said to his 
father at breakfast: 

"Oh, Pa! I wish there would be an explo- 
sion in the neighborhood of School No. 8." 

"Why do you talk so, my son?" inquired the 
interested and perplexed father. 

"Because, then school couldn't keep !" 

That was one of the boys ; but we grown-ups 
are not praying for explosions ! We have no 
quarrel with God's School. We welcome all its 
hours, because God is our teacher; and, though 
the algebra of morality, the calculus of justice 
and the geometry of government, are still diffi- 
cult studies, we welcome them. The Great 
Teacher comes with them, and, when we halt and 
limp, try and fail, He holds us up and puts us 
at ease. 

Then also we think much of God's Power- 
House and the Spiritual Energy that pervades 
the world and is the never-failing resource of 
the buoyant and courageous life. We look at 
life's connections and seek to belt the machinery 
of existence to the leaping streams that flow 
from the Everlasting Hills. That which we 
think about becomes our ally, and directs and 
inspires our movements. Grace flows into our 
hearts, and our debility is converted into ability, 
despair is changed into optimism, weakness into 
strength and fear into an all-consoling confi- 
dence. There are no care-lines on the faces of 



78 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

Arcadians — we call them rays of sunlight here. 
People are not old here at eighty, because of 
the adequacy of their resources and the rejuv- 
enescence of their spirits. We are all nimble, 
buoyant and resourceful servants of God, who 
is the soul of our soul and the life of our life. 

Thus are we all happy, healthy and success- 
ful in Arcadia. Even the thirteenth does not 
frighten us. All things work together for good, 
and heaven is always nearer earth — that is 
Arcadia — than we can know. Our young peo- 
ple are very young and beautiful. Our old peo- 
ple are very old — gracefully old, and our crown 
of glory. Sandwiched in between are a host of 
royal good people that make Arcadia, with its 
beautiful streets and lawns, colonnades of trees 
and pleasant parks, the envy and glory of the 
world. 

Perhaps you are too poor to move to Arcadia? 
Then become an Arcadian where you are. 
Take the first degree to-day. 

PBAYEB, 

Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, we 
thank Thee that Thy omniscient love broods 
over the world and warms and saves humanity. 
It gives us confidence in ourselves and Thee, and 
enables us to make the world a brighter place 
to live in. Therefore, as we begin this new day 
we beseech Thee, so to breathe upon us with Thy 



THE GODWARD THOUGHT 79 

Holy Spirit, that vre may be conscious of Thy 
presence every hour, and sustained by Thy 
marvelous peace, through Jesus Christ Our 
Lord. Amen. 



XVII 
IN SEEING GOD WE LIVE 

There is an old saying somewhere which runs 
like this, "Man cannot see God and live." It 
ought to be revised and made to read, "Man 
cannot live unless he sees God." Sees Him 
in sunrise and sunset, in mountain rill and pon- 
derous waterfall, in the storm-cloud and the 
rainbow, in the mist that overhangs the harbor, 
and in the nebulous ether in which float a thou- 
sand unknown worlds. In the face of the hum- 
blest flower and in the benignant lineaments of 
the human countenance. No ! we are not living 
until we see God interlocked in every relation, 
for He is everywhere, and every common bush 
is aflame with heavenly light. 

Going down the dusty road yesterday a 
group of brown-faced children brought this 
truth home to at least one heart. They were 
growing and thriving because every day they 
were permitted to look into the face of love. 
The day began for them, when their waking 
eyes looked up and saw mother's eyes looking 
down. That was sunrise, when father looked 
in the nursery door and said, "Good morning." 

Froebel, the great teacher and friend of chil- 
dren, knew that such vision was essential and 
fundamental to education. In consequence, 
80 



IN SEEING GOD WE LIVE 81 

with all the enthusiasm he could command, he 
exhorted parents to live and play and work with 
their children. He was convinced that was the 
best school where mother is the nurse and father 
is the priest. The child on its mother's arm 
lives as much on vision as on milk. The 
mother's bosom does little more than support its 
tender body; but the down-turned eyes, liquid 
with yearning love and solicitude, invoke the 
soul, and, day after day, like a great warm sun, 
draw it into conscious life and beauty. For 
the child, mother's face is home ; where she sits 
— is heaven. 

The down-turned eyes of motherhood and the 
up-turned face of childhood, the yearning heart 
and the extended hand, are symbolic of life's 
higher relationships. The world's bosom can 
do little more for us than meet the needs of 
the physical; the spirit of man needs God. 
"Where there is no vision, the people perish." 
God is so fundamental to real existence, so es- 
sential to all worthy attainment, so indispen- 
sable to enduring achievement, that the moment 
anything throws Him into eclipse, confusion 
and demoralization ensue. The best commen- 
tary on this principle is French society of the 
Revolutionary Period. The Jacobins, who 
were in power, denied the necessity of God and 
religion and sought to establish a state on the 
basis of the Reason. But so overwhelmingly 
disastrous did the effort prove, that Robes- 



82 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

pierre, the chief of them, sought to recover the 
nation by once more installing God into national 
affairs, and begged the people to return to their 
altars. It was the only way to avoid collapse 
and ruin. 

During the later years of Tennyson's life, 
when the great conflict between science and re- 
ligion was bitter, and old faiths and traditions 
were abandoned, the poet, scenting the danger 
of the people forfeiting their hold on God, 
wrote, "I desire for myself and the English peo- 
ple nothing so much as a clearer and more vital 
vision of God." 

Such vision of God is necessary for us and 
all mankind, because it determines direction. 
Sight controls step. That which we look at, 
at first deliberately and later aut omic ally, plots 
our course. It is the North Pole by which are 
determined the latitude and longitude of moral 
and religious life. If an age is aesthetic in its 
tastes and desires, it will produce music and 
pictures ; if it is industrial, it will be character- 
ized for invention and manufacture; if it is 
materialistic, it will not be wanting in Floren- 
tine luxury and extravagance; if it is religious, 
it will be marked by philanthropy, charity, jus- 
tice, mercy, and truth. That which people 
see, — that which they hold in the mind's eye, 
that which they ponder, determines course and 
— character. 

So true is this in man's higher relations, in 



IN SEEING GOD WE LIVE 83 

his relation to God, that when he loses his 
vision of His Creator, he soon loses his sense 
of nobility and virtue, of heroism and responsi- 
bility, and, after a little while, the people are 
submerged in a wild welter of sin and shame. 
Where there is no Apocalypse, civilization and 
culture are in danger of collapse. The vision 
of ideality is the strength of reality. The 
good we see in the air, determines the good we 
accomplish at our feet. The God we see is 
the God we serve. 

Where there is no vision, the people perish. 
It is true of enthusiasm. Enthusiasms are 
born of great insights. Life is never so insipid, 
prose so prosaic, poetry so dull, music so 
doubtful, art so mediocre, as when there are no 
great insights behind them to compel attention, 
challenge respect, and command pleasurable 
feeling. The stream of enthusiasm flows with 
limpid beauty and fullness when it rises in the 
heart of the mountains. Rising there, it com- 
mands all springs and rivulets, and receives to 
itself the contributions of surrounding regions, 
and goes on its way to drive, with its exuber- 
ance and freshness, the wheels of existence. 

So are they who live in the reality of the un- 
seen : the passionate fullness of God fills the soul 
with His superabundance and transmutes the 
forces of their being into forms of health, life, 
beauty and optimism. Indifference capitulates 
to joy, and inaction surrenders to generous 



84 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

service and achievement. Happy is the day 
that begins in the vision of God. Its path will 
be marked by certainty and clearness, and its 
hours will be full of His glory and power. 
Yes, to see God, is to livel 

PRAYER 

That we cannot do without Thee, O God, is 
the verdict of our nature. What the sun is to 
the solar system, Thou art to us, and in Thy 
mysterious fullness alone we live. Permit us 
not to forget this, but to live in the vision of it 
all our days. If in the course of life, we should 
be drawn away from Thee and be tempted to 
forfeit the best we have and know, deal with 
us in mercy. If we fail to heed Thy tender- 
ness, chasten and chastise us, only permit us 
not to lose our hold on Thee. Deep down in 
our hearts we desire only Thee, and our prayer 
is that we and all mankind may grow into Thy 
image, from glory to glory. Amen. 



XVIII 

THE MOUNT OF INSPIRATION OVER- 
LOOKS THE VALLEY 

The purpose of religion is to inspire life and 
insure happiness ; and to be religious is to live 
in harmony with the loftiest dictates of the soul. 
God has written His law in the heart, it is a con- 
stitutive part of being, and loving compliance 
with it, is conducive to refinement and culture, 
righteousness and life. To be religious is to 
travel through the world on the way God has 
ordained and our nature approves ; and the 
verdict of experience is, that it is the only sure 
means of being truly useful and supremely 
happy. 

Moreover, in the business of life man has 
need of capital, he is not sufficient unto him- 
self. Great as his powers are, comprehending 
the spheres, and mastering the wildest and most 
elemental forces, he has need of assistance. He 
needs more than his native endowments. They 
are often little more than a competence, en- 
abling him to secure shelter, food and clothing; 
and are incapable of creating moral and intel- 
lectual wealth and larger good, until they are 
re-enforced by the inexhaustible capital ac- 
count of God. We are living in a world in 
which we are just finding our way. Life for 
85 



86 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

all of us is a new and untried experience. 
Through many and diverse temptations and 
trials, we are often deflected from our course. 
Many people live in an environment that blights 
the noblest instincts at the start and causes the 
faculties to be quite unequal to the problems 
that confront them. By virtue of these facts, 
all of us need to be supplemented by the greater 
resources and more commanding personality of 
God. 

Religion brings this truth home to the heart. 
It insists that God Himself, in the plenitude 
of His power, — affectional, intellectual and 
volitional — is Humanity's chief asset in the busi- 
ness of life. He is in partnership with us, and, 
if we give Him opportunity to direct and en- 
dow, will prosper all our ways and ultimately 
bring us to the attainment of beatitude. But 
this is the Eternal Gospel: the great "I Am" 
is identified with us in the most vital and tender 
ties ; and every possible exigency and circum- 
stance are servants of His. 

"The greatest discovery of modern times," 
says Dorner, "is the essential unity of man and 
God." That is so, but is not a new discovery. 
Christ taught us this and has convinced us that 
the pulse of the Infinite beats within each one 
of us. Beats with tremendous creativeness and 
unmeasured capacity, pushes us on to higher 
and vaster spheres of moral life and service. 
Beats in the soul submerged in dire distress and 



THE MOUNT OF INSPIRATION 87 

in the rapturous heart of the seer on the Mount 
of Privilege, but beats with the vigorous throb 
of triumphant and victorious life. Beats 
within us that we may have power to redeem 
society, direct the channels of education, con- 
trol the arm of the law, institute works of mercy 
and fill the world with the imperial energy of 
morality and religion. God is in us, for the at- 
tainment of sovereign manhood and womanhood. 
He is centered in us that we may be anchored 
in Him. God is allied with us that we may 
defeat brutedom and its violation of law, 
tyranny and its betrayal of justice, cleanse the 
Augean stables of vice and crime, and permeate 
the world of feeling and thought and moral ac- 
tion with the superb and passionate energy of 
sublimest character. 

I know of nothing more sublime. It is the 
essence of God's noblest and most enthusiastic 
purpose. God and man are inextricably in- 
volved in one and only one order of life. Man 
takes up no responsibility, but God assumes it 
with him; for He is father and in personal and 
paternal solicitude desires the good and safety 
of His own. O the glory of it ! He is with 
us now, and His compassion is new every morn- 
ing and fresh every night. 

"God, who instructs the brutes to scent 
All changes of the element, 
Whose wisdom fixed the scale 



88 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

Of natures, for our wants provides 
By higher, sometimes humbler, guides, 
When lights of reason fail." 

PRAYER 

We thank Thee, O God, for the seasons of 
light and gladness in the midst of our earthly 
life, for the assurance of victory and the un- 
speakable fellowship with Thyself and the good 
and great. Brief that they are, they outweigh 
all the years of sorrow and bitterness that have 
harassed us. In them we experience joys, so 
deep and full that they are incommunicable. 
They remain in the solitude of the deeper self. 
Help us, then, to live with Thee and in Thee, 
and, like Thyself, radiate hope and gladness in 
every place. Inspire us in our work, deepen 
the flow of our hope, enlarge our enthusiasm, 
and when our work is ended, permit us to enter 
the joy of our Lord and Christ. Amen. 



XIX 

THE CROSS IS THE KEY TO GOD'S 
HEART 

They were going down the Way of Life, when 
suddenly in the evening light, a cross sent its 
rays aslant their path. Said the one to the 
other : 

"The Cross of Jesus is the mystery of the 
ages, and is as incomprehensible as the sun, 
whose light it reflects at this moment." 

"Just so, my brother," replied his companion; 
"nevertheless, it is the Key to the Heart of 
God." 

The cross is the mystery of the ages and we 
but partially apprehend its significance. We 
delight in its efficacy and beneficence, but are 
also overwhelmed and confused by its immeasur- 
ableness. It is the ensign of Christian achieve- 
ment and, as such, towers in the sun, is wrought 
into the altars of the Church, and enshrined in 
the bosom of Humanity; but the love that sur- 
rounds it and finds expression in it, is an im- 
penetrable profound. 

We look at it casually and, apart from being 
startled and surprised by its uniqueness, find 
but little in it. But we ponder it more seri- 
ously, or prayerfully seek to penetrate its 
depths, and the glory and sublimity of it, cause 

89 



90 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

us to relapse into silent awe. We gaze at the 
centuries of moral and religious effort it has 
inspired ; observe how it is entrenched in our in- 
stitutions and gives color and tone to life and 
society; and as the panorama of its influence 
passes before us in review, and its mysterious 
power lays hold of us, our hearts are covered 
with confusion. It is as though a child awoke 
from sleep and found itself looking at an im- 
measurable sunlit sea ! 

And yet the Cross has very definite signifi- 
cance. In spite of the mystery that surrounds 
it, it gives positive and dramatic expression to 
the love of God. It is the Key to God's Heart 
and unlocks His marvelous nature to us. 
Whether seen in the dim light of St. Peter's 
Altar, or on the steeple of an unpretentious 
chapel of the frontier, and be it of stone, wood, 
silver or gold, it declares with infinite emphasis 
that God is the source and fountain of sym- 
pathy. It informs us that He is under our 
burdens and cares, and, therefore, meets us at 
the fireside; follows us in the endless round of 
thought and toil; goes with us through the 
wearisome days of affliction; and, like a big 
brother shields a younger one and takes his 
blows, so He protects us against the assaults 
of our enemies, helps us out of our blunders 
and forgives our sins. Our cross is God's cross, 
and it is His until the bondage of the flesh is 
broken and life's journey ends in the twilight, 



THE KEY TO GOD'S HEART 91 

in the shadows of which we see the distant 
hearth-fire of the King of kings. 

"When no eye its pity gave us, 
When there was no arm to save us, 

He His love and power displayed; 
By His stripes He wrought our healing, 
By His death, our life revealing, 

He for us the ransom paid." 

So also the Cross is the key to "His power 
displayed." It registers for us the amount of 
power that is at our disposal in the fashioning 
of our lives. It stands for Compassionate 
Omnipotence sharing with us the arduous living 
of our daily lives and assures us that God is the 
moral and spiritual energy of the soul. God is 
Niagara's power belted to Humanity. 

Let us see the beauty of this by way of illus- 
tration. Imagine, for instance, a young man 
of large musical talent, but with no means at 
hand to develop that with which he has been so 
richly endowed. Born in an obscure Russian 
village, and of humble parents, a successful 
career is all but forestalled. The instruments to 
which he has access are old, worn out and badly 
tuned. The village chorister can do him no 
great service. But he is the musical prodigy of 
the neighborhood, and, though the chances are 
that no great field will open to him, his fame 
spreads. Now, in some strange way, it becomes 
known at Weimar, where live Liszt, Rubenstein 



92 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

and Chopin, that such a youth is living, and 
has in him the making of an eminent career. 
In the kindness of their heart they hit on a novel 
idea and form a close corporation to take him in 
charge. They say, "Let us give this youth the 
benefit of our experience and conceal nothing 
from him. Let us take him in to live with us and 
enjoy the sublime inspirations of our attain- 
ments. He shall be the world's great master of 
sound." The story is briefly told; the youth 
leaves the obscure village for Weimar, where the 
great Triumvirate of Music take him in. They 
pour their very life into him and admonish, guide 
and instruct. They tell him their achievements 
and inspire him to greater, and before he knows 
what has happened his name is a household word, 
and the music that he has created and breathed 
fills the world. 

But what I have pictured is no parable, it is 
a fact. The Great Triumvirate of The Universe 
— The Holy Trinity — is in league with every 
soul born into the world. The Infinite is belted 
to the Driving wheels of every human soul. 
The God of music, beauty, goodness, love and 
grace; the God of electricity, gravitation and 
light is your abettor and mine. He stands be- 
hind us and His light shines through us. In the 
background of our being is an immensity — like 
a sea — crowding us, filling us with the wealth of 
a tide at flood. 

Such is God to us, and the Cross declares that 



THE KEY TO GOD'S HEART 93 

no measure of suffering and sacrifice will divert 
Him from His love. He goes with us through 
our days as "the all-hopeful, all-serving, all-lov- 
ing Father, full of the plenitude and grandeur 
and heroism of mercy." He is by our side — 
this very moment — and neither death, nor life, 
nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor 
things present, nor things to come, nor height, 
nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be 
able to separate us from the love of God, which 
is in Christ Jesus, Our Lord. 

"O mysterious condescending! 
O abandonment sublime! 
Very God Himself is bearing 
All the sufferings of time!" 

PRAYER 

Great God of Love, we thank Thee that Thy 
heart follows us in profound solicitude through 
the world. Thou art with us in the depths and 
in the heights, in every place and sphere, our 
abiding counselor and friend. Almost too won- 
derful to believe, Thou art under our burdens, 
and knowest their heft and hardness. Surely 
Thy sympathy is. passing strange and Thy love 
is an immeasurable sea. 

Help us to be calm and confident, always be- 
lieving that, ultimately Thy love will bring us 
home to Thyself through Jesus Christ. Amen. 



XX 

GOD AND MAN MEET IN THE COM- 
MUNION 



The relation existing between us and the Sav- 
iour in the Sacrament of The Lord's Supper is 
a very close and vital one. It is even more 
intimate and immediate than many of us imagine. 
In a sense we are just as near to Christ as the 
disciples were twenty centuries ago. It is true, 
we miss the physical form, but we are not de- 
prived of the spiritual essence ; we are denied 
His noble face, but not the stimulating vigor of 
His grace ; we cannot touch His body, as Mary 
Magdalene did, but the tactile tendrils of the 
soul are wound around His heart. He meets 
us in the Communion, and His marvelous pres- 
ence makes the Sacramental experience the 
crowning one of our days. 

The presence of Christ is often obscured, and 
in some cases lost entirely to the soul, through 
our failure to appreciate this supreme fact. 
The profounder significance of The Supper is 
forfeited for the sake of some pet dogma or 
article of faith that has come down the years 
with eminent sanction, but in a very real sense 
has taken away our Lord. It was in the exam- 
ination of a divinity student recently, when we 



THE COMMUNION 95 

traveled over the old battlefield on which the 
great men of former years met in conflict and 
debate, that it became clear to us all how much 
was lost to the heart, through the head's refusal 
to enjoy until it could explain. But we will 
be more simple and childlike, and taste and 
see. We may not be able to explain the mys- 
tery, but the soul, which cannot be deceived, 
shall not, on that account, be denied its Lord. 
He is in the Sacrament, and before we leave 
the sacred table we shall know the truth of it. 
We will come to the discovery of it and be as 
glad as the disciples of old, when the Saviour 
stood in their midst and said : " My peace be 
upon you. It is I, be not afraid." 

We will know that He is present by the ex- 
perience of Spiritual warmth. One thing that 
will occur, as we observe the Sacrament, partake 
of the sacred elements from the hands of those 
who move quietly from pew to pew and guest to 
guest is this, there will be a profound feeling of 
cordiality between us and the Lord. We will 
feel warm around the heart. Our hearts will 
burn with quiet and beguiling consolation. In 
some cases the soul-thrill will be so profound, 
that it will flush the face with joy and celestial 
light. There will be tears, indicating that an- 
other feels within the tides of a larger sea, 
bearing on its billows the freshness and good- 
ness of eternal love. Another's joy will be so 
deep and rapturous, so holy and satisfying, 



96 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

that he will feel himself alone — alone with Him 
whose presence is 

Center, life and sphere — 
The glorious fullness of all here; 
The Prince of Peace, whose praises roll 
Around the world and fill the whole. 

The heart is its own best witness and will 
always refuse to forget its communion expe- 
riences. Others may grow heated about the 
reasonableness of them, but it will go right on to 
delight in their ineffableness. When asked to 
explain and describe, with sanctified reticence it 
will reply, "Did you ever feel crowding down 
upon you, as you rowed on an inland lake, a twi- 
light zephyr, laden with the honeyed fragrance 
of clover blossoms? Do you recall how easy it 
was to row before it? Such is the pressure — 
the marvelous — the miracle-working — the soul- 
satisfying pressure of my Lord when we meet 
in the Sacrament." 

Such has not been your experience? Then in 
all gentleness it must be said, "That is your 
fault, and not the Saviour's." For where two 
or three are gathered together in His name, 
He is in their midst to bless. Perhaps you 
recall how we sailed the Sea of Life together 
last summer, and how we stood on deck to gaze in 
wonder at the surging billows all around. How 
delightful the hour was ; but it never occurred to 
us that anything unusual was transpiring in the 



THE COMMUNION 97 

atmosphere overhead. We looked into space, 
but saw no more than a sea-gull or two ; we felt 
nothing new or strange; we heard nothing save 
the murmur of the wind encircling the ship. 
But all the while there was a message in the air, 
crowding down upon it, informing someone on 
board that a distant fireside in Arcadia had been 
converted into a precinct of Heaven, through 
the birth of a little child ! A Marconigraph was 
en rapport with the clouds and it got the mes- 
sage; and the patient operator sitting before 
it bore it to him who was waiting in love and 
prepared to receive the news. 

We cannot lose the marvelous, heart-warm- 
ing experience of the Sacrament, when the soul 
is in accord with the Lord. We will scent His 
presence, hear His voice, feel His power. The 
soul will register the fact and the old miracle 
of fellowship will be repeated in us. With Whit- 
tier it will confess 

"That it was well to come 
For deeper rest to this still room, 
For here the habit of the soul 
Feels less the outer world's control; 
The strength of mutual purpose pleads 
More earnestly our common needs; 
And from the silence multiplied 
By these still forms on either side, 
The world that time and sense have known 
Falls off and leaves us God alone." 



98 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

Then, too, we experience a wonderful sense of 
liberation and emancipation. We enjoy the 
mysterious liberty of the Sons of God. It was 
so with the disciples that walked with the Sav- 
iour to the village of Emmaus. They felt 
it, too, but did not know what to call it. As 
they journeyed with and listened to Him, they 
were mysteriously delivered from the bondage of 
sorrow, doubt and confusion. Without knowing 
how to account for it, their burden lost its heft, 
tears their bitterness and calamity its blackness. 
The atmosphere cleared, the fog lifted and light 
and freedom returned. So is it with us. Just 
so. We come to the Supper weary and heavy 
laden, feeling deeply our need of respite and 
strength; we come with our sorrows and cares, 
longing for His peace; we come knowing fully 
how much is required of us in the mart of life, 
and are haunted with fears ; but in some strange 
way He makes the mind as peaceful as a fireside 
before which a little child lies sleeping. "Christ 
takes the evil power out of to-day and takes 
the black threat out of to-morrow." We com- 
mune with Him and before we are aware of it 
enter into the joy and freedom of His trium- 
phant life. 

The presence of Christ in the Sacrament must 
be very real, because it brings us under the 
compulsion and inspiration of larger service and 
consecration. Sometimes we come to The Sup- 
per lukewarm, and go away burning with com- 



THE COMMUNION 99 

manding enthusiasm. We come feeling ashamed 
that we have followed Him so distantly, and 
go away in the resolve never to err again. 
There are times when we feel that The Old Story 
is worn out, until we have been the Lord's guest ; 
then we can doubt no more — we depart stim- 
ulated by its charm and power. We meet the 
Lord and leave His side inspired for service in 
every needy place. The glory of God in the 
face of Jesus Christ sends us out into the world 
to anticipate and install the Golden Age of Love 
and Brotherhood, when the mountain of the 
Lord's house shall be established in the top of 
the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the 
hiUs. 

Surely this is a great mystery, but we are not 
confounded by it ; it is the Lord's hour, and lo ! 
He is come to change our humble hearts into 
gilded audience chambers of Jehovah ! 

prayer ' 

We thank Thee, O God, that there is a sense of 
the soul as real and vital, as truthful and reli- 
able, as any bodily sense we know. We thank 
Thee that just as we become aware of things 
around us, through sight, touch and hearing, so 
there is a spiritual faculty that penetrates be- 
neath the tangible and beyond the phenomenal, 
and communes with the Eternal God. To-day, 
as we commune with our risen Lord, make us very 
sensitive to His presence, and permit us not to 



100 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

leave His side before we have felt the transform- 
ing quickening of His life. Then send us out 
into the world as ministers of light in the lanes 
of poverty and sorrow, in the alleys of despair, 
and in the narrow house of death. Thus shall 
the blessing of the hour be distributed over the 
years, and its memory and efficacy never be lost, 
but be felt until we meet Thee in the skies and 
reign with Thee forever, through Jesus Christ 
our Lord. Amen. 



XXI 

LIFE TRIUMPHS IN DEATH 

THE DAY OF BEREAVEMENT 

"Their eyes were opened, and they knew Him ; 
and He vanished out of their sight." It is 
often so in life. We come to the discovery of 
what is lovely and of good report, true and beau- 
tiful, satisfying and uplifting, and, even as we 
look, the good contemplated, fades away. Like 
a summer cloud sinks below the horizon, they 
disappear and are no more. We discover them, 
and reach forth to grip what we have found, 
but as we project the hand, the priceless treasure 
eludes the grasp. One short hour and — it is 
gone ! One look, one happy look, one soul-stir- 
ring look, and then — the void, the vacant chair, 
the weeping and the crying — the inscrutable 
night ! 

"Our joy is swallowed up and lost 
In one dark wave." 

How tragic the world would be, if that were 
the final chapter of existence! How hard and 
cruel, the fact of life ! to offer so much, yet 
remain so rapacious and ruinous in its exactions ! 
But this cannot be so. It is not so. Heart and 
Nature remonstrate that Death is but an inci- 
dent in the Book of Life. 

101 



102 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

"Life is real! Life is earnest! 
And the grave is not its goal; 
Dust thou art, to dust returnest, 
Was not spoken of the soul." 

Life triumphs in the hour of death. It abides, 
continues and persists. It is true, the momen- 
tary cloud is dark, heavy and lowering. There 
is confusion of heart and brain. There is the 
feeling one can never be glad again. Like the 
disciples, we go through the day communing and 
questioning together as to the thing that has 
happened. Death is an impenetrable profound, 
and before it we are dumb. But it cannot al- 
ways be so ; the hour of vision will come, the 
light break, the trembling and uncertainty cease. 
As we journey through the day, the absent one 
returns, and at eventide, as we sit at meat, our 
eyes are opened and the unspeakable glory of 
the undying soul overshadows us ! 

Such was the experience of the friends of 
Jesus. Death, they discovered, was a minor mo- 
tive in the great symphony of life, the grand 
finale of which remained to be played in some far- 
off eternity. His life continued. The Cross 
could not crush or destroy it. All came back; 
old ties were reknit; old associations renewed, 
and, in consequence, sorrow was turned into joy. 
"Then were the disciples glad when they saw the 
Lord." 

Therefore, we will not despair to-day. 
Though our eyes are dim and our hearts broken, 



LIFE TRIUMPHS IN DEATH 103 

we will face this mysterious providence with pa- 
tient resignation, and not rebel. That which 
has gone returns again. It will be ours to 
prize, cherish and possess. It will come to us 
refined and glorified. True, we are mystified 
and overwhelmed, but we will not murmur. The 
years were just long enough to reveal the charm 
of the soul that has gone hence, and, now that 
we are alone, we are desolate, but we will not lose 
our faith. The miracle of life will be wrought, 
and to-morrow, or the next day, if not this 
eventide, our eyes will be opened — we shall see 
— and be satisfied ! 

Until then, this strange providence will do sev- 
eral things for us. 

It will help us to lean more on God and less 
on ourselves. The good life that has passed 
from us, leaving behind the charm and grace, the 
nobility and usefulness of its career, however 
long or short, will help us all to repose in the 
Infinite. As our love follows the spirit that is 
gone, we will be drawn nearer home to the great 
heart of God. It may seem as though we were 
following a flickering light through long, dark, 
underground passageways ; but let us not be 
alarmed — the light will not stop until it has 
brought us into the hallowed, full-orbed, glit- 
tering audience chamber of sovereign and sympa- 
thetic love. Life will win the day and give us 
strange power of uplifting. 

Life triumphs in death, in that it leads us to 



104 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

the discovery that the departed soul throws a 
hallowed glow over all our ties and friendships. 
The fireside will be more sacred, because of the 
vacant chair; the pulpit more solemn, because 
of the pastor whose voice is still; the lake on 
which we rowed together, more familiar and 
meaningful — a kind of immortal glow will soften 
and transfigure familiar scenes, and cause them 
to be approaching precincts of Heaven. It was 
the experience of the disciples. They saw the 
Christ marvelously present everywhere. He was 
in the Upper Room. His benign presence stood 
in their midst ; He was by the side of the broken- 
hearted Magdalene ; He stood on the shore of the 
lake at dawn, waiting for the return of the fisher- 
man's boat! He was everywhere, in the pleni- 
tude of His power and in the fulness of His love ! 
Such is the miracle of death. It reveals life. It 
is hard to believe, for we are crushed; but it is 
true — it is true. 

So this providence will be a golden link bind- 
ing us to Eternity. We will think more of that 
clime because our beloved is there. We will re- 
call a thousand noble traits, innumerable cour- 
tesies, pleasant scenes; but all the while, as we 
trace the career that is ended, the mind will 
ponder the country toward which we move. It is 
a way God has, and He is good. Though this 
strange and mysterious experience was permit- 
ted ; though our garden is despoiled of its choic- 
est flower, and the hearthstone is desolate; the 



LIFE TRIUMPHS IN DEATH 105 

life that is gone will help us to be patient and 
strong. 

PRAYER 

In Thee, O God, we rest our troubled hearts 
this hour and strive to say, "Thy Will be done." 
If we cannot speak our grief, or lift our eyes, 
Thou knowest why, for Thou bearest our bur- 
dens on Thy heart. We are passing through the 
cloud and feel its gloom ; through the shadow and 
are awed by its desolation ; through deep waters 
and are borne to and fro by their resurgence. 
It is the hour of our deepest need, and Thy love 
alone can bring us solace and repose. 

Before this, we were not afraid of death, we 
saw it from afar ; but now it is in our home. A 
vacant chair stands before the hearth and it fills 
our hearts with unspeakable sadness. But Thou 
art near and here, and Thy gentleness will hold us 
up. Thou art afflicted in all our afflictions, and 
Thy heart is never so tender, or Thy hand so 
strong, as when Thy children suffer loss. Draw 
very near, O God, and let Thy Fatherhood un- 
bosom itself to our stricken souls. Enter the 
circle of our life and teach us to know that life 
triumphs in death, and that after many heart- 
aches all matures, and death is swallowed up and 
lost in eternal victory. Help us, then, to slip 
our hands in Thine ; and grant that we may know 
that nothing can separate us from the love of 
God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. 



xxn 

KINDNESS CURES HEART TROUBLE 

It is a great thing to be appreciated and 
understood! To have troops of friends, who, 
though they cannot always agree with us still 
have occasion to speak well of us. The truth is, 
many of us are suffering from disappointment 
and nervous collapse through the chill and blight 
of indifference, and many a noble life has been 
brought to grief through unkindness, criticism 
and depreciation. Truly great men and women 
have succumbed to discouragement, hard work- 
ing people have been driven to bitterness and 
despair, because kindness that should have been 
expressed was repressed, and such words as were 
spoken were "sicklied over with envy, jealousy, 
and uncharitableness." The world has always 
suffered more from criticism than praise, and 
there has been more heart trouble caused by re- 
pressed kindness than overwork. 

Kindness and sympathy are constructive in 
their influence and, therefore, should be ex- 
pressed. They are edifying, upbuilding, cheer- 
ing and inspiring. They put brightness into the 
day and joy into the hours. They inspire love, 
confidence and courage, and send us to our work 
with the vigor and enthusiasm and passionate 
interest of youth. They keep the props of life 
106 



KINDNESS CURES 107 

under us, faith in the soul, and love in the heart. 
The grace of kindness is the greatest nerve tonic 
in the world. 

I remember seeing once some years ago, a toy 
water-wheel in a mountain stream, near by the 
road that led to the village school. It was cun- 
ningly contrived and its workmanship was splen- 
did. How pleasing were its splashing move- 
ments, as its arms turned gallantly and rhyth- 
mically with the flow of the stream! At night, 
on my return journey, it was a wreck, and all 
around it lay the stones that had been picked 
from the street and hurled at it, and brought 
to an end the proud and finished work of some 
ambitious lad. That day's experience is sym- 
bolic of much that takes place in your life and 
mine. It calls to mind the many people who go 
up and down the dusty road pelting things with 
stones, or like the stage driver of old, snap their 
whips into the faces of flowers, twigs, birds and 
beasts. They seem to be possessed with a dia- 
bolical instinct to destroy things. It is a mis- 
chievous, apathetic, and ape-like habit. I use 
the word "ape-like" advisedly, for it is the in- 
stinct of that inferior animal, the monkey, to 
pull things to pieces, and it is a term sufficiently 
expressive to indicate the reproach of his more 
royally bred neighbors ! 

Friend, do you know the game of the ape? 
Are you throwing stones? Are you fond of 
carping criticism and wanton disparagement? 



108 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

Well, stop it! It is no sign of superiority or 
moral greatness, and ill befits any of us. Be- 
gin to throw a few flowers once in a while; send 
your neighbor a bouquet from your own garden, 
— appreciate him and speak well of his work. A 
little praise will not hurt him, and it will make 
you more generous-hearted and happy. Yes, 
let us get down to Jesus' plain way of living 
and do unto others as we would have them do 
unto us. That is the royal law of happiness 
and peace. 

Words of kindness are very gracious because 
they create the right kind of atmosphere in stra- 
tegic moments. Has it ever occurred to you 
just what it means for a lawyer to plead a case? 
How much brain and brawn and physical force 
are involved in the preaching of a sermon? 
How much strength and patience are used up 
in preparing a dinner, or how much wit, sa- 
gacity and shrewdness are necessary to secure 
large orders for goods, or how much energy and 
force of character are required to accomplish 
anything worth while? The outlay is simply 
tremendous, and in every instance one is bound 
to suffer reaction. After the flood-tide is the 
ebb-tide, in which brain-fag and weariness of the 
flesh are sure to follow. How good a word of 
appreciation is just then! What a superb 
tonic ! It is like a fresh breeze — a tank of oxy- 
gen — a tankard of rejuvenating optimism! 

And we all need it! Yes, you who never had 



KINDNESS CURES 109 

a sick day in a decade ; and you who have hardly 
known a well one ! You who have had things 
your own way since you crossed the threshold of 
the old home; and you who have not scored a 
single success since you began life. Yes, all of 
us need an atmosphere of benevolence and hu- 
manity, of congeniality and appreciation, of no- 
bility and benignity, if we are to express the 
deepest and noblest manhood and womanhood. 
Every one of us needs the summer weather of con- 
fidence — its beauty, warmth and affection, if we 
are to realize our moral and spiritual destiny. 

In the Upton Letters, Benson, the author, 
writes to a friend, who is very much distressed. 
In his inimitable way Benson reminds him of 
his native genius, his good sense, and excellent 
opportunities, and assures him that his friends 
believe in him and have not been indifferent to his 
success. In this most gracious way the author 
brings his letter to a close, saying, "We are 
in God's hands and He will see us through." 

Imagine, now, if you please, the good fellow 
as he received and read the letter! It is just 
possible he began to sit up in that dash of in- 
spiration ! The fire began to burn more brightly 
on the hearth! He felt the resurgence of new 
life within and probably rose up and walked 
the floor, confidently saying to himself, "I can 
stand anything, so long as he believes in me and 
esteems me. Henceforth, I win!" Of course, 
we know he behaved like this, because it is the 



110 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

way we comport ourselves in similar circum- 
stances! There, now! the secret is out! 

PRAYER 

Great God, Our King, help us never to forget 
to be kind to the suffering world around us. We 
have been spared much and our lines have been 
in pleasant places, but give us the contempla- 
tive mood, that is not unmindful of the bitterness 
and desolation of our fellowmen. Grant us 
hearts of flesh and arms of affection, and so 
fill us with Thy life that we may be able to serve 
one another in love. Help us to go into each 
day in the strength of omnipotence, fearing 
nothing and hoping all; never harsh but always 
gentle, and linked with Thee in a service grow- 
ing more beautiful in spirit and more generous of 
heart. Grant that we may go forth, radiant 
and resolute, courageous and confident — with the 
kind of consecration that will comfort the sor- 
rowing, temper the happy, strengthen the weak, 
and guide the young and ambitious. By what 
we think and do, may we inspire crusades of 
philanthropy and mercy, and so persuade all 
hearts to return to and rest in Thee. Amen. 



XXIII 

THIS MAY BE A TRANSFIGURATION 
DAY 

The universe in which we live is spiritual to 
the core. God is at the heart of it, and His 
benignant presence fills the minutest atom, as 
well as the illimitable sky, with glory perfectly 
bewildering in depth, scope and grandeur. He 
besets us behind and before, and His arm of love 
is linked with ours in sympathetic and consoling 
companionship. 

The moment we become conscious of ourselves 
and our nature, we are conscious of another, 
around whose being the tendrils of the soul 
are wound, and in whose presence alone we are 
satisfied. It is as though a rain-drop, drawn by 
the sun's rays from the deep, became conscious of 
itself and discovered at the same moment the im- 
pinging immeasurable sea; or a grain of granite 
became acquainted with itself, and learned that 
it was a part of a vast mountain system; or a 
star recognized its nature, history and destiny, 
and found itself to be a part of an impenetrable 
profound. We cannot think of ourselves with- 
out feeling God. The discovery of ourselves 
leads unerringly to the greater discovery that 
we are part and parcel of a great and all-encom- 
111 



118 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

passing Spiritual Order, at the heart of which is 
—God. 

"Closer is He than breathing; nearer than hands or 
feet." 

But the inspiring thing about God's world is 
this, that its attitude toward man is sympathetic 
and beneficent. The world in which we live is 
one in which God comes forth to meet the yearn- 
ing soul, the aspiring mind, the aching heart, the 
pleading spirit. As the sun rises out of the 
deep, to be felt and seen of man, so God emerges 
from the mysterious totality of things to reveal 
Himself, to identify Himself with us, and so 
bring us to the realization of the mightiest 
purposes of the soul. The struggle is not 
all on our side ; the greater effort is God's, 
who is ever pleading with our wilfulness, 
contending with our blindness, protesting with 
our unfaith, in the hope that we may know Him 
with perfect knowledge, be devoted to Him in 
holiest love, and serve Him with the constancy of 
a steadfast will. 

God's attitude toward us is just what it was 
to Christ. The relation of the spiritual world 
to the human, is as vital and inter-penetrative 
as that shown us in the marvelous Transfigura- 
tion Experience, which the disciples shared with 
their Lord. The spirit world is always imping- 
ing on ours ; and we are more in it and it is 
more in us than we can know. We are in it 



TRANSFIGURATION DAY US 

as a fish is in the sea, and the sea is in the fish ; 
as a bird is in the air and the air is in the bird. 
We live and move and have our being in a world 
that is tremulous and quivering with the solemn 
and sovereign life of God. The world is shot 
through with divinity. 

The picturesqueness and grandeur of this 
thought is beautifully expressed by Wordsworth, 
the philosopher-poet. He says: 

"I have felt 
A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime 
Of something far more deeply interfused, 
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
And the round ocean, and the living air, 
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man : 
A motion and a spirit, that impels 
All thinking things, all objects of all thoughts — 
And rolls through all things." 

It is important to ponder this fact, for in the 
business of life, when material circumstances 
shift, misfortune comes, hardships, fatigue and 
sorrows crush us, we, like the disciples of old, 
are in peril of losing heart. The sin and suffer- 
ing of the world may be too much for us, and 
cause us to doubt the spiritual universe — its 
sympathy and beneficence, its consolation and 
destiny. We may get the feeling that we are 
living in an environment that is inimical and hos- 
tile. A great fear may clutch the heart and 



114 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

inspire the suspicion that, perhaps, after all, this 
is not God's world. With the fear possibly may 
come mental darkness and confusion and that 
awful bitterness of spirit that challenged James 
Thomson, the apostle of pessimism, to write : 

"Not for all Thy power furled or unfurled, 
For all the temples to Thy glory built, 
Would I assume the ignominious guilt 
Of having made such men and such a world." 

But such is neither God, nor the world. God 
does not stand aloft in chilling and immovable 
abandon. He is not hard as granite or cold as 
the north wind. Jesus understood the world and 
God, and when He saw what was taking place 
in the lives of the disciples He knew what to do. 
Quietly and softly as an evening zephyr He 
raised His voice and said, "Come, my beloved, 
let us spend the night with the Father. Let us 
bear our aches and pains, our doubts and pro- 
tests to Him: He will understand." 

Such is the world in which we live that the 
Transfiguration may be experienced again by us 
all. The world is so constructed that it is not 
content until it has come to us for greater en- 
richment and illumination. Therefore, where- 
ever you are, or whoever you be, enter this day 
in perfect confidence. Some day, if not this 
one — in some twilight hour, or perhaps in the 
dawn, while at prayer, or partaking of the 
Sacrament, or while seated in the solitude of 



TRANSFIGURATION DAY 115 

the forest, or sailing at sea, while at worship, 
or performing a menial task, the glory will come 
with a sudden burst of light ! The ear will be so 
perfectly in tune with the Infinite that it will 
hear music unheard before ; the eye so clear and 
lustrous that it will behold visions unseen be- 
fore ; the soul so sensitive that the humble nook in 
which we live becomes a precinct of Paradise ! 
The Glory of The Unseen is revealed and — be- 
hold, we see and know God ! 

prayeb. 

O God, Our Father, we thank Thee that Thou 
art vitally associated and personally identified 
with every one of us. We are never alone, but 
always at the center of ensphering and all-per- 
vasive love. Grant that we may know this with 
the mind, believe it in the heart, and obey it in 
the will. 

Breathe upon us in the hours of this day, 
and grant us the vision that will inspire our spir- 
its, deepen our fellowship, sanctify our devotion, 
and crown all our service with enduring success 
and abiding influence. Thine, Thine only, shall 
be all the praise and the glory, through Jesus 
Christ, our Lord. Amen. 



XXIV 

JESUS CHRIST IS THE GLORY OF 
EASTER DAY 

The supreme glory of Easter Day is Jesus 
Christ. He brought life and immortality to 
light, and the world does Him honor. Long be- 
fore we awoke this morning, Easter bells and 
anthems were tolling around the world. Up and 
down the Rhine, over the German Ocean, through 
Merry England, across the Atlantic, beyond 
America and the Pacific to Sunny Japan — one 
continuous roll and resonance of music, declar- 
ing Jesus is Risen, and the Tomb is empty ! 

Twenty-four hours of gladsome music! reach- 
ing the altar of the obscurest cottage at the 
edge of the frontier, as well as the gilded shrine 
of the Vatican, are felt in every home and heart; 
heard in every street and boulevard; heralded 
on land and sea. Think of it! And all about 
that Man — the Incomparable Christ! 

So was it in the remote past, on the Resurrec- 
tion day. Men and women spake in superlative 
terms and gave evidence to enthusiasm that be- 
guiled the mind of its doubts, and intensified 
the heart in its love. Christ was the inspiration 
of the soul in the first great Easter, and He 
is that to-day. His face is not in eclipse now. 
116 



THE GLORY OF EASTER DAY 117 

His glory fills the earth, and humanity responds 
to it, gratefully singing : 

All hail the power of Jesus' name! 

Let angels prostrate fall; 
Bring forth the royal diadem, 

And crown Him Lord of All. 

Let every kindred, every tribe, 

On this terrestrial ball, 
To Him all majesty ascribe, 

And crown Him Lord of All. 

But why is this ? How came it about that His 
name is the theme of eulogy and song, of prayer 
and thanksgiving? 

The heart answers in loud acclaim, "Christ 
is the glory of Easter, because He lays bare to 
man the infinite tenacity and vitality of the soul. 
He assures the world that the soul endures and 
persists. The body alone goes down, but per- 
sonality continues forever." 

Therefore, there is a ring of triumph to Easter 
Day; it declares and attests the immortality of 
the soul. It evidences beyond the shadow of a 
doubt that what we essentially are, endures. 
The soul, with its great hopes, persistent aspira- 
tions and spiritual attainments, is as eternal 
God. The breath of life, that was breathed into 
man at the beginning, is imperishable. A mil- 
lion years cannot exhaust it ; death cannot an- 
nihilate it. We began in God and God is our 



118 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

goal. Immortality is the logical and indispu- 
table predicate of our nature, and the Resurrec- 
tion of Jesus Christ is a fact that we can believe, 
because our nature anticipates it. Jesus Christ 
we crown Lord of All, because He converts hu- 
man hope into certainty, and man's fear of death 
into abounding FAITH. 

Now, this concerns every one of us and ap- 
peals strongly to each heart ; for in the last year 
many new graves were dug in the Greenwoods 
of the world. In spite of the brilliant and beau- 
tiful Easter colors, the signs of mourning greet 
us on every side. Under the draperies of sorrow 
is the heart that never ceases to inquire, "If a 
man die shall he live again?" There have been 
tears, and there will be more. There have been 
painful separations ; ties, that endured for years, 
are broken. There are vacant chairs, and every 
one of them is an interrogation point. The 
path to the tomb is in constant use; men and 
women are coming and going. Though this is 
Easter Day, the surrounding world is kneeling in 
The God's Acre of Time and pondering the great 
thought of Job. And oh! the joy that the 
spring breeze bears in its bosom the soul-stirring 
message — the Tomb is empty, the grave is shorn 
of its powers, death is swallowed up in victory! 
Though the sepulcher were of granite, sealed 
and re-bound with bronze and iron, it cannot 
hold the soul in bondage; it leaps the barriers 



THE GLORY OF EASTER DAY 119 

of the material and rises in majestic affluence 
and vigor to continue uninterruptedly in the 
presence of the Eternal God. 

With the Christ we live eternally. Our lot 
is not that of the grass which withers, nor that 
of the beasts that perish. We are not like 
star-dust, that gleams in the night and drops in 
the abyss of space and is no more. The stone 
is rolled away, and the angels speak to us, as to 
the disciples of old, "Seek not the living among 
the dead; the Gibraltar of Death is taken and 
dismantled, and he who was its prisoner is as 
free as the air that stirs in the trees and kisses 
the immeasurable deep !" 

"All that of good and fair 

Has gone into the womb of time, 
Hath come forth again to wear 
The glory and beauty of its prime. 

"All have come back: each tie 

Of pure affection is knit again; 
Alone shall evil die 

And sorrow dwell a prisoner in death's reign." 

Come, friend, as we live and journey together, 
let us plan our lives in the light of this great day. 
Let us hold ever in our thought that immortal- 
ity is a postulate of being, and eternity is our 
native clime. Let us not imagine for a moment 
that death is an interruption of life's plans ; 



1^0 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

the dismal end of virtue ; the fruition of sorrow ; 
the destroyer of hope. But, like Victor Hugo, 
let us meet the future, believing that we are ris- 
ing toward the sky, and, if possible, with the poet 
let us always sing: 

"The stars shine over the earth, 

The stars shine over the sea; 
The stars look up to God above, 

The stars look down on me. 
The stars shall shine for a thousand years, 

A thousand years and a day — 
But God and I will live and love 

When the stars are passed away." 

PRAYER 

We thank Thee, O God, for the triumph we 
commemorate this day; for all that it means to 
our earthly life and the one to come; for the joy 
and hope that it inspires ; for the thoughts it 
awakens; the peace it bestows. All that is in- 
spiring in our experience this day is due to the 
supremacy of Jesus Christ, whom Thou didst 
make to abound for the enrichment of all man- 
kind. His triumph glorifies us all. 

For His sake and ours, give us the faith that 
wins, the courage that prevails, the hope that 
makes strong, and the love that endures unto the 
end. Grant us full control of our powers and 
help us to live with clear eyes, pure hearts, and 
obedient wills. So shall every day be a resurrec- 
tion, from sin to saintliness, from despair to 



THE GLORY OF EASTER DAY 121 

hope, and from mortality to immortality. Thus, 
at length, shall we be worthy to live and reign 
with our risen and exalted Lord, unto whom be 
all the praise and glory. Amen. 



XXV 

THE ROOTS OF BEING ARE NOUR- 
ISHED BY ETERNAL SPRINGS 

Christianity is the religion of optimism be- 
cause it assures us that the roots of our being 
are nourished by eternal springs. Not by a 
pool that dries in the sun, nor by an aqueduct 
that may be clogged by the debris of existence, 
nor by a cistern that may leak, but by a river 
of life, flowing out of the heart of God — out of 
the depths of eternity for the enrichment and 
redemption of man. Thus Christianity is pre- 
ponderatingly a religion of strength and sanity; 
and by its tremendous resourcefulness clothes 
everything that it touches with verdure and flo- 
rescence. It is creative and re-creative; it re- 
claims and transforms ; and moves over the world 
with a light, beneficence and bounty, that leaves 
in its wake a trial of joyous life and optimism. 

Happy is the man that trusteth God and whose 
heart is anchored in Jehovah; for he is like a 
tree planted by the waters, the roots of which 
have playing around them the refreshing exu- 
berance of infinite rivers. With Jeremiah, the 
world's optimists have believed this to be so. 
Browning voiced the same faith in an epigram: 
"God is in His Heaven, all's right with the 
world." And now we are surprised to find it to 
122 



ETERNAL SPRINGS 123 

be a tenet of science. One of its great lights re- 
cently said, "The universe is permeated through 
and through with divine spirit; and the soul of 
man is watched and guided and sustained, by an 
all-loving and adorable God." Jesus always 
believed this and continually affirmed that God 
was the source of all His life and usefulness. 
Paul, one of Jesus' greatest and most renowned 
followers, and a man who abhorred insincerity 
and condemned dishonesty, said, "I live, and yet 
not I; Christ liveth within me." Now it is the 
secret of the world. We, too, live and move and 
have our being in God; and He lives in us. If 
this day our sorrows are less inconsolable; if 
our burdens are somewhat eased; if, after many 
trying days with a competitive world, we feel 
refreshed and buoyed up in spirit, it is due to 
the fact that the roots of our life are soaked by 
the springs of eternal love. We are walking 
with heads erect and steady eye and courageous 
heart and determined will, because rivulets of 
grace are entangled in redeeming ministry with 
our life. At the bottom of our life is God. 

"All is of God that is and is to be, 
And God is good. Let that suffice us still; 
Resting in childlike trust upon His will, 
Who moves to His great ends, unthwarted by the ill." 

It is sometimes derisively remarked that opti- 
mists are blind in one eye and see indistinctly 
with the other; therefore, they do not see the 



1U KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

world's shams and shames, its harassing woes 
and gruesome immoralities, its hardships and 
injustices. They do not see the black realms 
of midnight and eclipse; they are unmindful of 
the appalling catalogue of envy, murder, deceit, 
and sin, that blacken the pages of history; 
therefore, are they optimists. But the voice 
who speaks of the "tree planted by the waters" 
was not stark blind in one eye nor poor of sight 
in the other. He was not a man easily deceived. 
He was all sight and insight. He had a vision 
of the times that almost stunned him. What 
he saw shocked and shook him. He was all but 
overwhelmed by the wickedness and profli- 
gacy of his countrymen, yet he was an op- 
timist. And he was that, not because he saw 
less than others but more than they. He was 
an optimist because he saw God in life's mys- 
terious processes, and felt the buoying strength 
of hidden but irresistible purposes at work. 
He was an optimist because the roots of his be- 
ing were saturated with infinite power, and he 
knew that absolutely nothing, however strong or 
infamous, could circumvent or frustrate the se- 
quence of eternal interests. 

A mighty will involves the earth 

In Progress* firm contention; 
And brain and brawn at last give birth 

To God's supreme intention. 



ETERNAL SPRINGS 125 

Then work, believe, and hew your way 

Like stalwart Roman lictor; 
Grapple the foe; nor quit the fray 

Till crowned by God the victor! 

PRAYER 

O God, Our Father, in Thy love Thou hast 
been pleased to give us access to unfailing 
springs. Rivulets of grace flow all around the 
roots of our life, and because that is so, we have 
power over sin and death. Herein lies the secret 
of our cheer and optimism. Help us to live 
gratefully as unto Thee, and, whenever our lips 
are parched and our hearts athirst, grant that 
we may drink at the Fountain of Life. So shall 
we go through the world with fervid faith, buoy- 
ant hope, and triumphant love. In the great 
day of coronation Thou shalt have all the praise 
and the glory, through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Amen. 



XXVI 

WOULD YOU KNOW GOD BETTER, 
USE YOUR EYES 

How can we enrich and deepen our knowledge 
of God? How may we know Him more inti- 
mately and completely? How can we get at the 
pith and substance of His character? 

These questions constitute the North Pole of 
human desire. We are all God-seekers, and like 
Philip of old yearn to see the face of the 
Father. "Show us to The Father," is the eternal 
cry of the soul. Even little children want to 
know Him: He is the glory of their land of 
dreams. Youth craves knowledge of Him : He is 
the fulfillment of their ideals. The middle-aged, 
under the stress of the world's burdens and in 
the presence of the varied experiences of joy 
and sorrow, health and sickness, seek Him for 
solace and counsel, protection and assurance. 
The aged are not satisfied with their Wander- 
Jahre, unless they see in the gloaming of their 
decline the face of the King. 

God is the pith, the substance, the founda- 
tion of all things, and no sane person believes 
himself wise, who does not in some measure 
know Him. God is the acme of human knowl- 
edge and no one is truly educated, who does not 
to some degree apprehend the profound myster- 
1£6 



USE YOUR EYES 127 

ies that center in His being. God is the culmi- 
nation of human destiny, and no man can hope 
to survey and plot his course through the world, 
except by knowledge of Him. To know God 
is to live. 

How to increase our knowledge of God is not 
so difficult as we imagine, if the voice and ex- 
ample of Jesus are heeded. Were He to instruct 
us now, He would say, "Do you desire to know 
God, begin with the things that surround you. 
Begin where you are ; ponder the things at your 
feet; scrutinize every living thing in the com- 
monplace world in which you live. It is full of 
the evidences of God's presence. A grain of 
dust may unlock His heart." 

Now, no person so thoroughly appreciated 
the soul-hunger of man as Jesus did. None was 
ever more sympathetic in His effort to gratify 
it, or more successful in bringing the soul of man 
into harmony with God. And this is what He 
did: He looked into the gleaming eyes of the 
people that flocked around him and said, "Con- 
sider the lilies of the field, the fowls of the air, 
and the growing corn — there you will find God, 
The Father." Jesus did not require them to 
memorize long and impossible creeds. Of course, 
!He knew their value; but He was aware of 
what is more important still, and therefore said, 
"Look! Look!" And ever since that day man 
has seen God behind the petal glory of the sim- 
plest flower by the road-side; behind fields of 



128 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

waving grain; in silver streams flowing through 
the meadows ; and in the boundless and illimitable 
sky. Behind and within everything, near and 
remote, we have seen and still do see God. 

In one of the great canyons of the West is an 
immense foot-print — the foot-print of a giant. 
How that got there, no one knows ; but there 
it is — safe and secure in granite. So do we find 
the footprints of another everywhere we go. 
Somehow there is no summit to scale, or valley 
to descend, but we come across them and enter 
an atmosphere that overwhelms us with a sense of 
the Divine. God is there and everywhere. We 
scent His presence in the home, with its warm as- 
sociations of love and solicitude. He is in the 
school and its ceaseless effort to guide and de- 
velop the men and women of to-morrow. He is 
in the fire that warms the hearth and in the 
electricity which lights the room. The foot- 
prints of God are on the ground we tread. 

"A sacred presence overbroods 
The earth wher'er we meet; 
These winding forest-paths are trod 
By more than mortal feet." 

How is it, then, that we learn to know God 
so slowly? How is it that we can live in such a 
God-filled atmosphere and environment, and know 
so little experimentally of God? How is it that 
we may work with electricity and seldom, if 
ever, feel the quivering pulse of the Infinite? 



USE YOUR EYES 129 

Is it not remarkable that we can play nature's 
organ so extensively and yet get so little of the 
spirit that moves and rolls through all things? 
How does it happen that a painter may depict 
the manifold glories of the evening and the 
morning, and just escape the greater glory that 
overshadows every beautiful thing? There is 
too much strain in life and, consequently, we 
have no time to observe and feel. We fail to 
recognize God, because he will not force himself 
upon us, and we will not stop to commune and 
ponder. We are living in a world of beauty, 
but our Express trains go dashing through it 
at break-neck speed, and so are we denied fellow- 
ship with Him who lives, thinks and speaks in 
His manifold creation. It may be that we are 
so anxious to acquire wealth, that we do not see 
the dimple on baby's cheek; or so concerned 
about "getting on" that we fail to see the glow of 
love in the eyes of mother or wife; or in such a 
hurry to prosecute life's plans and purposes, 
that we do not detect the pressure of solicitude 
in the good-bye grasp of a sweetheart or friend. 
And just as we lose these blessings, which are 
more to us than gold and silver, water or bread, 
— just so — we lose the consciousness of God. 
Therefore, swift from the sky comes the clarion 
note of love — "Be still, my child; be still. Be 
still, and know that I am God." 

A picture on the parlor wall, does not indicate 
the highest possession. It may have cost thou- 



130 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

sands, and you have paid the price. But you 
may just own it and not possess it. Yes, it is 
your picture, but is it in you? You do not 
really possess it, until its beauty and grace, its 
spirit and passion, have soaked into your soul. 
That delightful miracle is wrought only through 
silent study and meditation. He who sits in si- 
lence, looks and waits, catches its spirit and 
makes it his own. So do we know God. Not in 
our haste to subscribe to creeds, or recite cate- 
chisms, or to defend traditions, but in pov- 
erty of spirit and openness of soul, do we gain 
the deeper consciousness that compels us to say, 
as we touch the world, "Surely God is in this 
place, and we knew it not." Therefore, may 
God grant us a long bath of silence and repose, 
so that we may gain the insight which is capable 
of detecting His most silent approach. This 
day may we be still, and know God. 

PRAYER 

We thank Thee, O God, that Thy glory is 
written in the clouds, and in every beautiful thing 
that has life. Thou hast beset us behind and 
before, that in our earthly sojourn we might 
not fail to find Thee, and thus increase our per- 
sonal knowledge of Thee. We thank Thee that 
Jesus taught us to be simple and open-minded, 
and led us to see Thee in the humblest as well as 
the sublimest relations of life. Make us like 



USE YOUR EYES 131 

Him ; give us His supreme confidence ; and clothe 
us with His sincerity. Then may we hope to 
know Thee and reflect Thy glory in all we think 
and do. Amen. 



XXVII 

THE SECRET LIFE REWARDS US 
OPENLY 

It is said in Sir Walter Scott's study was 
but one chair, and that he m occupied himself. 
There was room enough for a score, but that they 
were not there, is significant. The great writer 
was intensely sociable everywhere but in that 
place. He had the grace and humor, the gentle- 
ness and culture, the warmth and spirit, that 
contribute to and enlist friendship; but in that 
precinct of books and high thinking, where the 
gates of idealism stood ajar and streams of 
inspiration enriched the hours — there he had to 
be alone. 

The great inspirations of life come to us in 
secret, in those hours when in silent worship and 
prayerful meditation, or trustful expectation, 
the soul meets God. There is nothing unusual 
in this phenomenon: it is the fulfillment of 
an eternal law. "If any man lack wisdom, let 
him ask of God, who giveth liberally and upbraid- 
eth not." "Before ye call, I will answer; and 
while ye are speaking, I will give continued 
audience." The inspirations are given, because 
the soul is untrammeled and free. It is not dis- 
tracted by the external world, but on the con- 
trary, is receptive and expectant, alert and am- 
132 



THE SECRET LIFE 133 

bitious, sensitive and impressionable. By meet- 
ing these conditions, it is put en rapport with 
the inner harmony of the world; so that, just as 
two strings tuned to the same pitch, respond to 
each other, the soul answers to the key-note of 
the spiritual. It is inspired because it is hospit- 
able. Because it is an inlet, it is filled by the 
buoyancy and power of the eternal sea. 

Great occasions are sometimes said to be great 
inspirations. Perhaps it is more correct to say, 
they are great outlets for inspiration — great op- 
portunities for the expression of what the soul 
has thought, felt and received in solitude. Take, 
for example, Webster's reply to Hayne. For 
many years it was supposed to have been ex- 
tempore — the occasion produced it. But it was 
not impromptu, as Webster himself admitted. 
The debate with his great contemporary was 
only a supreme moment in which Webster could 
evoke all that he had ever thought and read and 
written about the subject. Prior to the ora- 
tion were many years of private study and re- 
flection. The secret life rewarded him openly. 
In the last analysis, so is it with every great 
achievement and popular success : they emerge 
out of these solemn moments when great ambi- 
tions and ideas hold the soul in leash. They 
are God-born. 

You and I need such hours, because it is evi- 
dent that we cannot rise higher than our in- 
spirations. It is with us as with a public foun- 



134 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

tain, which never rises higher than its source. 
The important thing, therefore, is to put our- 
selves into such an attitude of openness to God, 
that He shall be able to think, work, and act 
through us. A good book may be helpful in 
this respect. Said a friend to me recently, "Em- 
erson is sometimes hard to understand, but he 
never fails to inspire." Friends may render ex- 
cellent service. Jonathan strengthened David 
in God. Boswell was inspired in fellowship with 
Johnson. But such ministries at the most can 
do little more for us than to teach us to listen 
to the "voice of the higher self, the voice of the 
soul, the voice of God." As Emerson puts it, 
you and I are here to be worked upon, to be 
plastic in the hand of God, receptive to his 
brooding spirit, and obedient to His will. So 
shall we know the secrets of the universe, and 
be infused and penetrated by its life and power. 
"Genius," says W. J. Dawson, "is the in- 
strument of the unuttered. It originates noth- 
ing, but it perfectly reports messages inaudible 
to others." The observation is undoubtedly cor- 
rect, but the foundation of genius is openness of 
soul to God. To secure that, is the real thing 
involved in all effort to identify ourselves with 
God. There need be no great effort in the mat- 
ter, for it is the most natural thing in the 
world for the soul to desire God. It is restless 
until it is anchored in Him. Therefore, be 



THE SECRET LIFE 135 

natural; for it is not in struggle but in sym- 
pathy, that the secret lies. God's revelations 
come soonest, when we are just ourselves — 
watchful, confident, and receptive. We are chil- 
dren of God and, therefore, need not plot and 
scheme to secure favor and protection. As chil- 
dren, we may walk in the simplicity of confident 
love, believing firmly that what we need is at our 
beck and call. Surely this is true of our in- 
spirations: every door of the spiritual stands 
ajar to the step and touch of faith. God is 
All in All to the worshipful heart. 

The secret life endows the heart with the faith 
necessary to give publicity to its inspirations. 
That is important, for many fine and elevated 
thoughts, splendid in their depth and scope, ma- 
jestic in their strength and beauty, are dis- 
credited by us. We doubt their originality and 
authority, and hesitate to express them. Yet, 
when later we hear them preached from the 
housetops, we are annoyed and feel inclined to 
shout "stop thief !" We need, therefore, be 
strong, honest and fearless with them. They are 
as good as the best, and not intended for our un- 
doing. However strange the song may be that 
God gives, we ought not to discredit it. We 
ought to sing it, if we have to sing it alone. 
The next may be better — more finished and sub- 
lime. The same feeling ought to prevail with 
everything God inspires in heart and soul — they 



136 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

come to us armed with the sweetness and strength 
of eternal love. They are authentic, because 
the Divine pulsates in them. 

Much of our fumbling and uncertainty are due 
to the fact that we have doubted God's Holy 
Spirit, and so have lost the consciousness of 
His presence in our lives. We have not en- 
couraged the secret life, nor kept the heart open 
to the Infinite. And, just as a man grows out 
of sympathy with home through indifference and 
ingratitude, so we lose the impressions and sug- 
gestions of infinite wisdom through doubt and 
cowardice. Many a person, late in life, after 
numerous doubtful exploits, returns home to find 
the hearth-fire out, the blinds closed, the garden 
walk overgrown, and the old well fallen in. 
Poor bankrupt fellow! But so do we become 
insolvent spiritually. While we center our 
affections on Babylon, we lose our love for Jeru- 
salem. We fix the heart on the material and, 
though all around is tremulous with divinity, and 
the world is full of mysterious suggestiveness, 
we see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing, re- 
ceive nothing. 

Oh for the open soul — the quiet and impres- 
sionable heart! that see, know, and enjoy the 
ineffable fullness of God! And Oh, for a dash 
of inspiration that will help us to break through 
our conventional reserve and shout — "Surely, it 
is good to live !" 



THE SECRET LIFE 137 



PRAYER 



We thank Thee, O God, that it is possible to 
engage in quiet meditation in Thy presence, and 
feel ever around us Thy mysterious guidance and 
influence. All of us have some secret place where, 
like the Saviour, we meet Thee and are not 
denied Thy consoling sympathy. We have 
come to Thee troubled in spirit, weary in body, 
perplexed in mind, and, though we could not 
utter the need of the heart, Thou didst not with- 
hold Thy goodness. Thou gavest us as much 
light as we were able to receive, and as much 
calm as we consented to accept. 

Grant that the hours of confident exchange of 
thought and feeling may be more frequent, and 
our inspirations so continuous and full, that 
they fail us not in the hard places of the world. 
Help us to be centered in Thee, and so shall 
we have virtue and health, contentment and 
peace, everywhere. Amen. 



xxvni 

EVEN YET A PRESENT HELP IS HE 

Christ was a constant source of surprise to his 
disciples. The moment they began to live pro- 
foundly, they found Him at the center of every- 
thing worthy their notice. And He was there 
in no small capacity, but as the fountain-head of 
joy, at which they could regale themselves, and 
continue their journey through the world with 
increased hope and enthusiasm. Every turn 
and point in the road abounded in refreshing, 
because He had passed by, filling them with the 
favors and felicities of indulgent love. 

That he does this for us is very often 
doubted. The reality of it is lost in our ex- 
perience, because we deal with these relations 
as historic phenomena, and not as ever recurring 
personal experiences. We think of religion as 
expressed in institutions, as identified with rites, 
creeds, and literature, and consequently forget 
what takes place in our own souls. We lose 
the profounder joy of fellowship with God, be- 
cause we fail to recognize that the creative spirit 
of eternal love is infusing, inspiring, exalting 
our very heart-beats. Content to deal with the 
rubbish heaps of past history and example, we 
lose the charm, efficacy, and stimulus of our own 
inspirations and revelations. While we are busy 
138 



A PRESENT HELP IS HE 139 

here and there, we become oblivious to the 
Eternal God, whose presence fills not only the in- 
most sanctuary of the heart, but crowns with his 
imperial glory the very dust of the road on which 
we travel. While we think of past prophets and 
saints, analyze their messages and breathe their 
prayers, we forfeit our own spiritual knight- 
hood, through the failure to apprehend that we 
too are God's chosen and have been admitted to 
the secret of His heart. 

One reason why the sacred scriptures have 
lost their significance for many people, is due 
to the dangerous habit of mind, which relegates 
to the past the great experiences that it re- 
counts, describes and elucidates. They had 
reality once, but not now. It is argued, that 
the past was exceptional, characterized for rare 
insights, splendid visions, and stirring apocalyp- 
ses ; but they can be no more, and, as we sigh 
to ourselves, we regret that things should be so 
remiss. Yet all the while the great God is all 
but bombarding the strongholds of our nature 
for recognition, confidence, and renewed conse- 
cration. The religious life of many of us is 
but an echo of something that has departed, 
when it might and ought to be a rapturous paean 
of triumphant and unforgettable music ; for God 
is the same, yesterday, to-day and forever. 

"God moves," says Dr. Abbott, one of the great- 
est prophets of to-day, "through the troubled life 
of modern times, as of old. And He is as near 



140 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

each one of us as He was to the greatest of His 
children in the days when men saw His hand 
in all the events of life." Our natures suggest 
as much. If we will cultivate the spiritual sense 
of hearing, we will hear more; or sight, we will 
see more; or heart, we will feel more. We will 
find God not only in the sacraments and services 
of the Church, or in the rapturous notes of the 
oratorio, or in the warmth and eloquence of 
prophecy, or distinguish Him in the gilded em- 
blazonries of the sunset and the terrible caval- 
cade of the storm that sweeps the sky, or dis- 
cover Him in great and rugged stretches of field 
and mountain, and in limpid and bounding water- 
falls; but we will scent His presence every- 
where. In the grime as well as the gold of life; 
in the mill as well as the sanctuary ; at the work- 
basket as well as at the altar — in the great round 
of commonplaces that determine and constitute 
the present order of things. For, if God has 
ever spoken, He speaks to-day. If He has ever 
made Himself known, He reveals Himself now. 
He desires to be just as real to us as He was to 
anyone in the past. Penetrating all, however 
clear or confused, delightful or galling, is His 
face — the benignant countenance — the amazing 
glory of God Our Father. 

A return to such confident dependence on God 
gives us a new sense of harmony and health, 
for everything he touches is attuned and healed. 
He is the great virtuoso who knows that no in- 



A PRESENT HELP IS HE 141 

strument can fail His touch. If He breathe on 
it, it responds. He is the Great Teacher who 
knows how to lead His pupils into the intricacies 
and excellencies of His thought, until they be- 
come clear as day and inviting as the first fruits 
of love. He is the Great Physician who knows 
that His plans and purposes cannot be wrought 
out by weak and sickly lives and, therefore, He 
saves and heals. Such is the Lord's work in our 
lives and it is marvelous in our eyes ! He is 
setting things in order. His touch is bringing 
harmony out of discord, beauty out of the 
ignoble, strength out of weakness, life out of 
death. 

It matters not what period of His life we 
contemplate, such was the work of God in Christ. 
Jesus was always leading people out of dark- 
ness into the light, from superstition and igno- 
rance into faith and knowledge, from unright- 
eousness into a state of grace, from despair 
into hope; and from unrest and anxiety, into 
the perfect peace of God. From the beginning 
of His ministry, to its close, Jesus sought finer 
and firmer adjustments of life. Nicodemus, who 
was groping for it, He led into faith. He put 
the genial host of a wedding at ease, in a trying 
hour. He planted new hope in the heart of a 
fallen woman. He healed the sick, comforted 
the sad, rebuked the wicked, and raised the dead. 
At the last, He sent a great anthem of rejoicing 
through the world, that shook the very walls of 



142 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

Heaven, for He overcame death. To-day He 
fllleth. All in All, and by His great organizing 
genius and tranquillizing spirit continues His 
work in us, duplicating all the great experiences 
of the past, with their strange charm, efficacy 
and power ! 

The lesson is plain. So the Lord anticipates 
us in every place and sphere. There is no 
church, or organ, or tool, that He has not 
touched. Before you sat in it, He occupied your 
pew; before you sat around the hearth in deep 
meditation, He was there. Yes, He is at the 
bench where you work. His presence overbroods 
that hallowed place where mother sits beside the 
cradle of childhood. His glory overshadows the 
soul everywhere, and the rustle of His garments 
are never lost to the ear. 

"But warm, sweet, tender, even yet 
A present help is he; 
And faith has still its Olivet 
And love its Galilee." 

PRAYER 

O God Our Father, we thank Thee for Thy 
presence which anticipates us at every turn of 
the road and meets us with a glad "All Hail!" 
Through Thy friendship and mercy, life is a con- 
stant source of surprise to us. Grant that we 
may ever walk in Thy ways and obey Thy pre- 
cepts. So shall we never forfeit Thy gracious 
presence and power, but be endowed with riches 



A PRESENT HELP IS HE 143 

of grace through Jesus Christ. Help us to live 
each day as unto Thee, that when the end come, 
we may meet Thee unafraid and unabashed, but 
with the confidence and assurance of perfect love. 
Amen. 



XXIX 

THE FATHER'S FRIENDSHIP NEVER 
FAILETH 

It is significant that the first Book of the Old 
Testament and the first Book of the New, in the 
same chapter of each and almost the same verse, 
is emphasized the eternal friendship of God. 
Though almost sixteen centuries intervene in 
their writing, what the first introduces, the sec- 
ond reiterates and enforces. It is as though an 
unseen hand reached down from heaven, dipped 
its pen in love, and wrote the truth so large that 
man could not possibly mistake its import and 
consolation. 

In the beginning — God ; at the end — God ; and 
in all the intervening stages and processes of life 
— God. What can be more comforting and con- 
soling! What can more thoroughly stir the 
depths of our nature ; so profoundly move the 
soul; or quicken the spirit? It is the one truth 
that enables us to grapple life with a serene 
mind, fervid heart, and persistent will. God is 
our Friend. He sticketh closer than a brother. 
He broods over us like a mother, leads us like a 
shepherd, and at the last, on wings of love, bears 
us beyond this mortal sphere, to see the meaning 
of our joy and tears, and reap an eternal harvest 
of felicity in the New Jerusalem beyond. 
144 



THE FATHER'S FRIENDSHIP 145 

But what do we mean by God's Friendship? 
What is it essentially, and wherein lies its po- 
tency? Is it not after all just a mere sentiment, 
a beautiful imagery, that we have spoken so 
often, that we must now believe it? I am sure 
we want to know what is implied, when we sing 
our favorite hymns or when we pray, for the idea 
of God is fundamental to every detail of experi- 
ence. 

As I apprehend it through the limelight of 
God's Word, His friendship is His loving and 
paternal identification of Himself with us in all 
the multitudinous and ramified relations of life. 
God's friendship is God's love going out toward 
you and me, and so vitally associated with us, 
that it anticipates our wants, gives needed coun- 
sel, strengthens the hand, comforts the heart, 
stimulates the mind, and arouses the will. God's 
friendship is the mighty arm of His strength 
made gentle as a child's, that its embrace may 
console and assure. God's friendship is that 
subtle and refining, that penetrating and illumi- 
nating, principle in His nature, by which He en- 
ters into us all, like the mighty sea at flood fills 
the estuaries and bays which margin the coast 
line. God's friendship is God's fatherhood at the 
point of need, that we, by its resourcefulness and 
power, wisdom and love, protection and care, 
may realize our heavenly sonship. 

As we ponder this truth, it becomes clear to 
us that we are not required to go through the 



146 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

world unattended. He goes with us all the way 
and keeps us sweet company. And that is as it 
should be, for we do not desire to be alone. It is 
said, that when William McKinley died and 
Roosevelt was sworn into office, he was overcome 
with feeling. His friends felt it wise to with- 
draw, but he turned to one of them and said, 
"Do not leave me. Pretend that you are read- 
ing. Do not speak to me; neither leave me." 
I have seen men, who faced the fire and 
flame of Lee's awful artillery at Fredericks- 
burg; who marched straight into the mouth of 
cannon; and with blanched face but resolute 
heart leaped over the fortifications of the enemy 
and planted the Stars and Stripes there. I have 
seen men grow haggard and pale ; I have felt the 
tremor of their nervous hands, as they watched 
and saw the life of a beloved wife or child vanish 
into impenetrable deeps. It is loneliness that 
makes sorrow hard. It is the vacant chair that 
hurts. It is the trinket on the mantel or the pic- 
ture on the wall that opens the fountain of tears. 
It is the unspeakable emptiness of a life, once so 
full of love and cheer, that fills the eye and moves 
the heart. But in that hour of loneliness and 
desolation we have — God, and He never fails us. 
"Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end." 
"Before ye call, I will answer; and while ye are 
speaking, I will hear." "As one whom his 
mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and 
ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem." "For I the 



THE FATHER'S FRIENDSHIP 147 

Lord Thy God will hold Thy hand, saying unto 
Thee, Fear not ; I will help Thee." How superb 
this all is ! How sublime ! Here is a relation 
that brings to flower and fruition the numerous 
possibilities of life. Here is a relation that be- 
friends us all along the line of earthly conquest 
and at last, when heart and flesh fail, and the 
earth recedes, confidently whispers, "Neither 
death, not life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor 
powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 
nor height, nor depth, nor any other created 
thing can separate thee from me. Enter Thou 
into the joy of Thy Lord." 

PRAYER 

We thank Thee, God, that Thou orderest all 
our days and goest with us through them. Thus 
does the world become a sanctuary, with an out- 
look upward toward Thee, and outward toward 
man. The moment we become conscious of Thee 
and enter into vital converse with Thee, we are 
reminded of our fellowmen. Finding Thee we 
discover Humanity. 

Breathe upon us in the sacred hours of this 
day. Grant us such visions as will inspire our 
souls, deepen our fellowship, sanctify and 
strengthen our devotion, and crown our service 
with enduring influence and success. Thine shall 
be all the praise and the glory for evermore. 
Amen. 



XXX 

THE YEARS CHANGE, BUT GOD 
ABIDES 

NEW YEAR'S DAY 

The years change, but God abides. In mercy, 
love and truth, He is evermore the same. His 
solicitude and gentleness, His watch-care and all- 
sufficingness, are immutable and eternal. He is 
yours and mine forever : the Lord God Almighty, 
and He will bring us to the desired haven in 
peace. 

Therefore, we will begin the New Year with our 
lives keyed to optimism. We will not be afraid, 
for He is by our side, a defense ; He is above us, 
a canopy of sympathy; beneath us, the immov- 
able Rock of Ages ; and within us, a never-failing 
spring of life. God is our All-in- All, and good- 
ness and mercy shall follow us all our days. 

It is true, to-morrow is uncertain. We do not 
know whether it will bring us good or ill ; but we 
are in safe hands. He abideth still. He is 
faithful to establish us, and every hour we may 
feel the pressure and stimulus of His benignant 
presence. God is here: — right where we are — 
before the hearth-fire, in the study, in the sick- 
room, in the shop, in the office, and in the ship 
sailing the sea. He touches every point of life ; 
He vitalizes and penetrates the Universe and us. 
As His presence fills the Sacrament, we love so 
148 



GOD ABIDES 14,9 

much, so He abides in us ; and, therefore, we 
shall never come to naught. 

"Be sure that God 
Ne'er dooms to waste the strength He deigns 
impart !" 

O, the glory of it ! Looking down on our 
Garden of Happiness, He once said — yes, He 
breathed it so low and tenderly that it still moves 
us to the depths, "I, the Lord, do keep it ; I will 
water it every moment ; lest any hurt it, I will 
keep it night and day." What sweet solace it 
brings us ! No evil shall befall our roof-tree ; 
the magnolia in the corner will bloom ; the corn 
will ripen in the ear; and the cherished plans of 
the Spirit shall fructify and abound. He has 
said it. So will it be. 

He will keep us. The wayside spring will not 
run dry, nor the fountain of life within us be ex- 
hausted. If we trust Him, and, armed with His 
strength, go into the New Year, there shall be 
fuel for the hearth-fire ; food for the larder ; 
trade in the store ; poems for the poet ; pictures 
for the painter ; music for the composer ; com- 
fort for the sorrowing; heart's ease for the 
weary and heavy-laden — yes, there shall be life, 
peace, and plenty for all ! In every circum- 
stance and exigency there will come out of the 
spirit world a great soothing tide of love to bear 
us to the haven of rest and quiet. 

He will water it moment by moment. God will 



150 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

not only keep what we have, but He will also in- 
crease what we already possess. The Old Year 
and its heritage will acquire momentum in the 
New. The little that we already have shall be- 
come more; the seed shall become the harvest; 
the acorn shall swell into the oak ! He will water 
it ! He will replenish it ! He will send the cloud 
to break the drought! Though it be but like a 
man's hand, it brings the refreshing rain; and 
when the rumbling of the thunder dies away, the 
trees will glisten in the sun, the blades of grass 
stand erect, and the birds sing for joy in the 
meadows ! And after the storm the rainbow — 
God's signature on the clouds, by which He says 
to our wondering hearts, "I will never fail you ; I, 
who have not forgotten you this hour cannot for- 
get; the rivers shall continue to flow and the 
flowers to grow; the parched fields shall yield 
the harvest ; I will water your Garden of Happi- 
ness moment by moment." 

Night and day will I keep it. God's eye is 
upon us every hour. As the eye of the lover is 
on the betrothed ; as the eye of the mother is on 
the new-born babe, so are we the object of His 
gaze. We are seen and watched, and nursed, and 
tended by immortal love. 

"Forever full, 

Forever flowing free; 
Forever shared, forever whole, 
A never-ebbing sea!" 



GOD ABIDES 151 

The years change but God abides. Lest we 
forget, let us make it the key-note of the New 
Year. Let us hum and whistle it. Around it 
let us weave a song of hope and praise. In its 
holy contagion let us do our work. With Chris- 
topher Pearse Cranch let us sing, 

"So in Thy love will we trust, bringing us sooner 
or later 
Past the dark screen that divides these shows of 
the finite from Thee 
Thine, Thine only, this warm, dear life, O loving 
Creator ! 
Thine the invisible future, born of the present, 
must be." 

PRAYER 

We thank Thee, O God, that we are living in a 
spiritual universe, that is controlled by Thy life, 
ordered by Thy will, and quickened by Thy love. 
We feel at home in it because Thou art here and 
everywhere, the inspiring friend of the soul. We 
love life because it brings us in daily contact with 
Thyself. The earth is so full of Thee and the 
hours so radiant with Thy glory, that we are 
never lonely. In Thy companionship we are 
content. 

Lead us through the New Year and grant that, 
whatever betide, we may be like the heroic Man 
of Sorrows who, though he bore on His heart 
the world's sin, never wavered or staggered, until 
on the cross He said: "It is finished." We do 



152 KEY-NOTES OF OPTIMISM 

not ask a cross, but if it come, help us to be 
faithful, patient, and strong, always assured that 
Thou art by our side, our Eternal Hope and 
Glory. Amen. 



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